Based in Charleston, South Carolina, painter Karen Ann Myers uses the bedroom as the backdrop to each of her works, both idealizing the space and offering vulnerability and strength with each subject. Specifically, the bed used as reference in each piece belongs to Myers, while the rooms are retrofitted with new styles, adored objects, and emotions. The result is a singular personality, with her own elegance and character.
The artist says she knows the women in her paintings personally, and she attempts to maintain a sense of their character with each work. “I am investigating the psychological complexity of women through intimate observations in the bedroom,” Myers says, in a statement. “The work is inspired by the cult of beauty in contemporary mass media. Intricately painted, decorative interiors are invented to titillate the viewer.”
The artist’s works on paper offer an entirely different aesthetic, in which overlapping patterns and less realism make the bedroom experience a more surreal, dream-like experience. Her earlier screenprints offer yet another take on intimacy, in which private moments are worked into intricate, otherwise elegant designs.
Myers is currently on staff at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston.
