Oooh, aaaaah! Remember those magical kaleidoscopes from childhood? Well, say hello to Kaleidoscoptical, an ongoing series {encaustic, casein on cradled panels} by American artist Karen Freedman. I told my high school math teacher I wouldn’t be needing math because I was going to be an artist. Oops. Here is part of Karen’s statement about this work:

… I strive for each of these paintings read differently when viewed close up and at a distance; almost as if you were looking at two different paintings. I … achieve this, not by turning a dial on a toy to allow color to reflect off mirrors but by creating a motif composed of multiple shapes and layers painted with opaque and translucent encaustic paint. Varying these colors and the order in which the elements are layered allows for an unlimited series of paintings that although united by a similar matrix can, once assembled, appear unrelated. The Kaleidoscoptical series as a whole is made up of sub-sets of paintings that are differentiated by the first four digits of their title. The paintings in each of these sub-sets are generated from a design matrix that is unique to that grouping. The process, like a kaleidoscope, repeats itself over and over, but each result is unique.

Beautiful, clever, complex. Sorry Mr.Keane… you were right. Damn it.