Addison Karl is an American artist currently based in Berlin. He has traveled extensively around the world in search of ethnic particularities while creating murals of great aesthetics.
His goal is to integrate art into the existing environment, creating harmony, balance, and adding life to an otherwise colorless wall while also encouraging the viewer to consider space, culture and the larger world, as he puts it himself.
He aims to combine his original traditions and promote innovation. Produced using a hatch drawing style, Karl’s paintings utilizes fine lines and details to create simultaneously diminutive constructions that, when viewed together each stroke of color endowing the compositional elements with vibrancy and movement. Most of his work is figurative, and the artist draws inspiration from the surrounding community and content in the form and expression of his subjects. Throughout his travels to Israel, Russia, Malaysia, Japan, the United States and Europe, Karl has explored the social construct of individual versus community in his work. He is very interested in cultural diversity and heritages, which is reflected in his work, and the aim of it is to provoke and stimulate discussion about community and diversity within it. In recognition of an inherent interconnectedness of the individual within the community, many of his recent works have featured individuals that are distinct from the surrounding community – resulting in an intermingling of cultures.
The artist works directly with the Chickasaw nation, he uses visual arts to communicate conversations about different cultures as an act of sharing and bring people together.
He combines seemingly incompatible parts of the art process and materials, creating complex ornamental compositions from beads, achieving their transformation into bronze, but also integrating beads into bronze sculptures.
Creating sculptures Addison works first with a sketch, then with clay. It is here that third-party materials, fabrics, or bead collars are mixed with the artistic process – a characteristic craft history of the people.
This is all embodied in bronze. But the artist goes further, he integrates beads and bronze not only at the level of form but also includes bead-work in the exposition, surrounds bronze sculptures with bead thread – demonstrating not only the importance of bead-work for culture, the continuity of the craft.
My artistic pilgrimage has evolved over a decade and a half of the process related to prepress print & color theory.
A cyclical evolution from blank slate to paper, canvas, sculpture to installation & integration into public space. With my work, I attempt to expand the viewer’s understanding of the context, structures & surfaces they inhabit adding life with my work & aiming towards a meticulous harmony & balance between that & the pre-existing environment. My process explores two main domains combining humanitarian figurative & aesthetic subject matter. Projects in internationally working with different cultures have allowed me to explore the social construct of individual versus community. These ideas raise issues I feel are primordial to discuss in both contemporary and public arenas. Furthermore, through my artistic practice, I hope to reintroduce into shared visual space a sense of ownership. The fracture of my work echoes this as each tiny detail communicates the innate relationship between an individual and the larger composition of the community.
My focus on painting has been developed through my specialized experience in prepress print techniques. My years in printmaking helped develop a strong relationship within the process of technical color utilization and the mechanics of reproduction through analog printing. Color Theory applications through the eyes of the printmaking process to build and enrich value range in my compositions. Pulling together the concept of “trapping” layers of color beneath to aid in the depth of my work. And using the physical movements of printing to painting large bodies of color meanwhile building up natural texture and form.
The finely controlled hatch-lines create simultaneously diminutive constructions that, when viewed together, unfold and evolve dependent on the physical position of the viewer. Color groups & concepts are explored using theories of parallelism, the bezold effect, impressionist and gestural mark-making.
Addison Karl
Solo show
2017
Chokma, Chinchoma? – Solo Exhibition – The Factory – Berlin, Germany Shopullali – Solo Exhibition – LAT – Berlin, Germany
2013
Berlin Portraits Exhibition – JBAK – 9 Canvas Series – Berlin, Germany
2010
Travels Exhibition – ReTramp Gallery – Berlin, Germany ZOO! Creatures Of Curiosity Exhibition – Assemble Gallery – Seattle, Washington
2009
Give Up Exhibition, Retrofit – Seattle, Washington iNVASiON Exhibition, Twilight Artist Collective – Seattle, Washington
Group show
2019
‘Brighter Future’ – Exhibition – King Street Station – Seattle, Washington ’yəhaw’ Indigenous Native – Exhibition – King Street Station – Seattle, Washington
2018
‘IMAGO’ A History of Portraits – Exhibition – Museum of Urban & Contemporary Art – Munich, Germany
2017
“Format Raisin” Group Exhibition – Galerie Mathgoth – Paris, France ”What The
2016
Weekend Is Gallery” Exhibition – The.Art.Union at Urban Spree – Berlin, Germany
2015
Millerntor #5 Exhibition – Millerntor Gallery – Hamburg, Germany Wall Dialogue Exhibition – Neurotitan Gallery – Berlin, Germany TONTON2 Exhibition – Brussels, Belgium Exploring the New Contemporary Movement Exhibition – Thinkspace Gallery – Honolulu Museum Of Art School – Honolulu, Hawaii
‘La Familia’ – 10th Anniversary Exhibition – Thinkspace Gallery – Los Angeles, California
2014
Urban Xchange Group Exhibition – Hin Bus Art Depot – Penang, Malaysia LAX / TXL – JBAK – Thinkspace Pop Exhibition – Berlin, Germany Re-imagining Group Exhibition – Icehouse Gallery – Sarasota, Florida
2013
All My Stars Exhibition – JBAK – Strychnin Gallery – Berlin, Germany Project „M“ – JBAK – Strychnin Gallery – Berlin, Germany Circle Show Group Exhibition – Urban Spree – Berlin, Germany Group Exhibition – Re:MMX – Berlin, Germany
Group Exhibition – JBAK – SEZ – Berlin, Germany Group Exhibition – Crack Art Festival – Rome, Italy
2010
Group Exhibition/Installation – TurmKunst – Berlin, Germany Design Festa Art Festival – Tokyo, Japan Group Exhibition – POVevolving Gallery – Los Angeles, California