[Note new location -ed.]

A group of 15 paintings and works on paper, Strictly Naturals represents Heagle’s ongoing exploration and confrontation of contemporary sensibilities and classical painterly concerns.

Through charming, simple, colorful, both rough and refined images, the artist provides the viewer an encounter with extra-quotidian characters, male and female, anonymous or celebrity models that have been symbolically empowered, erotically charged or elevated to some heroic, mystical status.

Although many of the works belong to the conventional portrait tradition, the series titled “Rialto Beach” offers vigorous, dreamy visions of flora and fauna emerging at low-tide times; images full of candor, these paintings are based on photographs taken by the artist’s companion during a mutual trip to Washington’s Olympic National Park.

Karen Heagle’s work appeared in “Rimbaud,” the 2004 group show at I-20. She was included in the SUNY Stonybrook exhibition, “Queer Visualities: Reframing Sexuality in a Post-Warhol World” (2003).

She has had shows at 31 Grand in Williamsburg, and work was shown at D’Amelio Terras Gallery, Bronwyn Keenan Gallery, and Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago. Heagle lives and works in Brooklyn.

Related blog posts: James Wagner, Edward Winkleman