Karen Heagle “Invocations”

Sargent's Daughters

[Image: Karen Heagle "Sacred Bull" (2018) acrylic, ink, collage, pencil, gold and copper leaf on paper, 30 1/4 x 28 1/2 in.]

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Invocations is Brooklyn-based artist Karen Heagle’s first exhibition with Sargent’s Daughters. The show presents new paintings on paper and panel, exploring Heagle’s recurrent themes: sexuality and queer identity, feminism, power, history and the fleeting nature of life.

The title Invocations conjures religious and mythical associations; a direct call upon a deity. In this new body of work the subjects are mostly stripped of their surroundings, rendered elegant, mysterious and mythical. Referencing Dutch still lives, Pasolini, the book of Revelations and Greek Mythology, Heagle presents a familiar cast of animals and humans, often gazing outwards at the viewer with a saintly stillness.

Heagle eschews ordinary beauty, focusing instead on the overlooked, coaxing her subjects from marginal to magical. Her sphere of saints and martyrs, gods and goddesses is populated with characters more often shunted to the sides, or eternally damned for their transgressions. Brought together, they form their own constellation: real, messy, gloriously alive.

Karen Heagle (b. 1967 Tomah, WI) is known for her vivid large scale works on paper that depict still life, landscape, portraits and animal subjects. Her paintings combine bold color mixtures and experiments with collaging colored paper and leafing.

In 2017 she presented new paintings in Beat, a two person show with performance artist Kate Gilmore at On Stellar Rays in New York. Recently her work was included in: Found: Queer Archeology: Queer Abstraction, at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Previous solo shows include Battle Armor, at Churner and Churner Gallery in 2013, and Let Nature Take Its Course and Hope it Passes at I-20 Gallery in 2011 both in New York City.

Her work was included in Paper at the Saatchi Gallery in London in 2013, Art on Paper 2012, at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC, and Panic Room at DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece. She has been included in exhibitions at Invisible Exports, Sargent’s Daughter’s, and Daniel Reich Gallery. Her work is in the Judith Rothschild Collection of Contemporary Drawings at Museum of Modern Art in New York City, as well as, internationally in collections including: Collecion-Jumex, Mexico City. She holds an MFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, and a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, Wisconsin.