Munch and Learn: A Self Portrait in Bushes and Clouds

Munch and Learn: A Self Portrait in Bushes and Clouds – Mary Jo Karimnia, artist and owner of Studio House on Malvern

Karimnia builds rich, highly crafted surface patinas with glass beads, foil and velvety flocking on vintage and contemporary imagery, using these non-traditional art materials to produce an altered view. She addresses identity-building experiences including her own as an older female-identifying artist. She imagines beauty and sadness competing in unreal views of an idyllic, miscolored past that never really was and an equally idyllic aching for a future that may never be. In her work a rainbow array of translucent beads may be affected by the color of the surface below. The ideas are often deep and hidden in shadows and encompass ancient magic and everyday life.

Karimnia helped to found and is the former Director of the Crosstown Arts Residency Program. Her practice includes a grassroots, behind the scenes activism with priorities elevating diversity and building deep connective fibers between local and nonlocal multidisciplinary artists from a variety of backgrounds and works closely with several artists based in Bolivia. She runs the Studiohouse on Malvern in Memphis, TN which hosts a yearly Studiohouse Openhouse event as well as intimate let’s-talk-about-the-art-world teas. She founded and runs the Front Porch Window Gallery, a small space meant to build community through self curation. It encourages unexpected art encounters by being embedded in a neighborhood and is lighted for viewing day or night.

Karimnia has gallery relationships with Sheet Cake in Memphis, TN, RO2 in Dallas, TX and PURO in La Paz, Bolivia. She has shown in the US and Bolivia and received grants, awards and residencies from ArtsMemphis, Urban Art Commission, and Mackinac Island Parks Commission. Writing about her solo museum show Fold at Dixon Gallery and Garden in 2016 Fredric Koeppel said her work “… plays around the fringes of folklore and the transformation of the psyche through the magic of women’s work and the way it impinges on the ordinary.”

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Wednesdays can be especially busy at Park and Cherry. If you’re attending Munch and Learn, please plan ahead and place your lunch orders early. To reduce disruptions during the lecture, guests are asked to bring their own food from the cafe to the auditorium. You may request to-go containers to make the trip to your seat easier. Pre-order by calling (901) 312-1277.

MUNCH AND LEARN IS ENDOWED BY THE LANDAU FAMILY IN MEMORY OF LESLIE MANN LANDAU