Art for Art’s Sake
“Barns, hay bales, trees, cows, and the occasional human. Since childhood, these are my favorite subjects, and, of course, the family dog, too— they pose and I turn them into art. Now more than ever, paints play a role in my post-processing. This is true especially because I no longer print in the darkroom, and I miss the zen of the process. Painting replaces that happiness. I just make art for art’s sake.”
— Karen M. Peluso
Karen M. Peluso earned a B.A. in Fine Arts Education from Montclair (NJ) State College (now University). For more than 50 years she has specialized in black and white art images— her “art for art’s sake” depicting her love for trees, barns, hay bales, and the occasional cow or human. Her award-winning work has been described by art critics as “visual poetry.” Karen’s infrared images create a unique, other-worldly effect, and she hand-paints a select number of monochrome images with acrylics or oils. She then signs, numbers and limit them to one-of-a-kind originals or as part-of-a-series numbering no more than 25 and often less than 5.
In addition to visual arts, Karen is a poet whose chapbooks of poems The Mother-Face in the Mirror (2007) and Magnolia Plantation: A Journey (2008) were awarded publication by the University of South Carolina’s SC Poetry Initiative and Stepping Stones Press. Additionally, her art and poems have been published in many literary journals and magazines all over the country. She served as the inaugural Poet-in-Residence at Magnolia Plantation & Gardens in 2008. Also, her images of Daufuskie Island life illustrate celebrity cook and author Sallie Ann Robinson’s Cooking the Gullah Way: Morning Noon and Night, published by UNC Press (2007).
Karen’s art is exhibited at the Beaufort Art Association Gallery, 913 Bay Street, Beaufort, SC and in Beaufort Memorial Hospital’s Lowcountry Medical Office, 300 Midtown Drive, Beaufort, SC. Her work is periodically shown at the Freedman Arts District’s Gallery in downtown Beaufort as well.
Hand-painting on fiber base paper print with Marshall’s Oil Pencils
Photo credit: Megan Lovett
Purchased from The Beaufort Gazette
Hand-painting on canvas with acrylic paints