Bio

Karen Mainenti has had solo exhibitions of her work at the 2019 SPRING/BREAK Art Show, The Bard Graduate Center Library, Ground Floor Gallery, The Society for Domestic Museology, and Chashama. Select group exhibitions include the Untitled Space, DUMBO Arts Festival, The National Arts Club, Louise Nevelson Chapel, Guest Spot @ The Reinstitute in Baltimore and the Cornell Museum of Art in Delray Beach, Florida. Her artwork has received coverage in ARTnews, Artnet News, Hyperallergic, Gothamist, Brooklyn Magazine, Gallery Gurls and The Believer Magazine, among others. In 2018 she was an Artist-in-Residence at the Bard Graduate Center Library. Mainenti is deeply connected to the Gowanus, Brooklyn arts community through collaboration with artist Sasha Chavchavadze on Footnote project space and serving on the Board of Directors of Arts Gowanus.

Artist Statement

My work is an engagement of appropriated text and images from consumer products, advertising and media. By reframing these messages—often with humor—I reveal the absurdity and unnatural expectations that society has come to accept as commonplace. I’m specifically drawn to exploring gender identity, because of its exceedingly elusive construct and the ways it impacts our perceptions of ourselves, interactions with others and cultural foundations.

Subject matter informs my choice of materials as well as my process. I often use diverse media: sculpture to investigate the subtle implications of shape and form; drawing to expose the small, meaningful details of product branding; installation to create immersive environments revealing deeper connections between my bodies of work.