Both SPARC galleries will be open for Saturday’s Arts Crawl from 3-6pm. At the SPARC Centre Gallery at the Fremont Centre Theatre building will be an exhibition featuring works by mixed-media artist, Karen Steen, entitled “Celebrating Nature”.
Inspired by a natural environment under threat, Steen says she views her vibrant, buoyant works “as ecosystems, a group of diverse elements and forces that have settled into a balanced and dynamic system.” These are interpreted through an amalgamation of painting, drawing, and paper shapes laser-cut from images of life forms in the natural world. “I attempt to imbue my pieces with qualities of the biological world: diversity, repetition, intricacy, rhythm, balance and interconnection,” she states.
Steen’s interest in nature’s diverse ecosystems began in a childhood fascination with tidepools—“small worlds filled with life.” In addition to academic degrees from ArtCenter College of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Steen, based in Pasadena and a South Pasadena native,
is a certified California Naturalist.
Celebrating Nature runs through November 9, 2024.
SPARC Centre Gallery
1000 Fremont Ave., Suite 120
South Pasadena, CA 91030
(The entrance is off the parking lot at the rear of
the Fremont Centre on El Centro Ave.)
To schedule visits during the run of the show, contact curator
Blue Trimarchi at (626) 676-4195.
Admission is free.
