Karen Snouffer

My work evolves from repeated themes based on contradiction and movement, materializing in painting, installation, sculpture, and collage. Utilizing mixed media provides a fluid structure for explorations of disparate ideas and offers a broad material vocabulary for unpredictable combinations. Tensions in my work arise from still versus energetic, organic versus synthetic, fragility versus strength, bizarre versus logical, flat versus relief, wall versus room, and chaos versus order. These opposites co-exist and agitate within physical and psychic space, providing opportunities for creating new worlds. I am intrigued with the relationship between chaos and order as a symbol for life processes as stated in chaos theory; within the randomness of chaotic systems, are underlying moments of order and pattern. My work is often filled with arbitrary, energetic elements. Among forms, shapes, and layered materials are ordered, intentional moments—visual stops of rhythm and repetition that offer structured relief from disconnected parts. My experiences with improvisational dance offer a space and body awareness that inserts itself into the work, allowing me to move among genres—continually conflating two and three dimensions.