Darina Karpov’s delicate works draw you in to what initially appear to be abstractions full of movement yet, upon closer inspection, each work describes a mini-world teeming with elements that teeter between abstraction and figuration. What appears to be a group of intersecting lines turns out to be a telephone pole or a tree veering off onto a different plane. Everything resides in a convulsive space that condenses, expands and contracts. The result is a terrain that is both a vast landscape and a cluttered cavern; a space that is flowing and transitory like water, and fixed like a stone or crystal.

According to Karpov, her work

forms like a virus, proliferating, shifting directions, plotting and transforming the space. The elements appear near and far; dense clusters disperse into the whiteness of the paper. Juxtapositions of abstraction and figuration, of familiarity and strangeness create an interplay of opposing forces. Tensions explode in chaos, disrupting any attempt at containment. (Karpov, 2006)