EDUCATION:

1993 Master of Fine Arts in Painting, San Francisco Art Institute.
1989 Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting, San Francisco Art Institute.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

2005 Dean Jensen Gallery, Cross sections, Milwaukee, WI.
1997 The Gallery at Villa Montalvo, Waterbones - New Paintings from the Body, Saratoga, CA.
1996 First Unitarian Center, Internal Garden, San Francisco, CA.
1993 Fort Mason Center, M.F.A. Exhibition, San Francisco, CA.
Union Gallery, Memory Unsettled, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA.
1991 Elizabeth Norton Gallery, Paintings, Pacific Art League, Palo Alto, CA.
1990 Diego Rivera Gallery, Paintings, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

2007 Wright Art Museum, 50th Annual Beloit and Vicinity Exhibition, Beloit, WI; Martha
Glowacki, artist and Director, James Watrous Gallery,Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters and Thomas Lidtke, Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend, WI -jurors.
2006 Evolving Art Gallery, Homage to Julius Hatofsky, Vallejo, CA.
Evolving Art Gallery, Spring Exhibition, Vallejo, CA.
Dean Jensen Gallery, Summer Exhibition, Milwaukee, WI.
2005 AAF Art Fair, Dean Jensen Gallery, New York, NY.
Wright Art Museum, 48th Annual Beloit and Vicinity Exhibition, Beloit College, Beloit, WI;
Mark Lawson, Director of Galleries, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and Amy E. Arnston, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin at Whitewater - jurors.
2003 Sonoma Museum of Contemporary Art, The Curatorial Eye: 15 Perspectives, Santa Rosa, CA.
2002 Walter Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute 120th Annual Exhibition, San Francisco, CA (catalog.)
2000 The Gallery at Villa Montalvo, Visual Responses to the Little Prince, Saratoga, CA; Howard Junker, ZYZZYVA magazine editor - juror.
Gallery Route One, 15th Annual Juried Exhibition, Point Reyes Station, CA; Marian Parmenter, Director, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists Gallery - juror.
1999 Jernigan Wicker Fine Art, Julius Hatofsky and Fellow Painters, San Francisco, CA. (Six artists)
Sonoma Museum of Contemporary Art, 2nd Annual Invitational Exhibition and Auction, Santa Rosa, CA.
1998 Lawrence Hultberg Fine Art, Summer Salon, San Francisco, CA.
San Jose City College Gallery, Women's Work, San Jose, CA.
SOMAR Gallery, Women's Caucus for Art Exhibition, San Francisco, CA.
1997 Institute of Contemporary Art, Valentine Invitational Exhibition and Auction, San Jose, CA.
1996 Institute of Contemporary Art, Annual Invitational Benefit Auction and Exhibition, San Jose, CA.
1995 Sonoma Museum of Contemporary Art, California Small Works 1995, Santa Rosa, CA; Roger Berry, sculptor - juror.
Schoharie County Arts Council Gallery, National '95 Small Works Exhibition, Cobleskill, NY; Jon Ippolito, artist and Exhibition Coordinator, Guggenheim Museum - juror.
1994 Sonoma Museum of Contemporary Art, California Small Works 1994, Santa Rosa, CA; Cornelia Schulz, painter and Professor of Art, UC-Davis - juror.
Works Gallery, Women and the Body, San Jose, CA..
Sonoma Museum of Contemporary Art, New Acquistions, Santa Rosa, CA.
Gallery Route One, January Juried Exhibition, Point Reyes, CA; Olga Dollar, Director, Olga Dollar Gallery - juror.
1993 Sonoma Museum of Contemporary Art, California Small Works 1993, Santa Rosa, CA; Bonnie Earls-Solaris, Director, BankAmerica Art Program - juror.
Gallery Concord, We're Only Human!, Concord, CA.
ACCI Gallery, Images and Objects '93, Berkeley, Hanna Hannah, artist and Franklin Williams, artist and Professor of Art, San Francisco Art Institute - jurors.
1992 Schoharie County Arts Council (SCAC) Gallery, National '92 Small Works Exhibition, Cobleskill, NY; Dan Cameron, New York art critic, writer and curator - juror.
City of Brea Gallery, From Real to Surreal, Brea, CA; Will Hipps, artist and Director, Angels Gate Cultural Center; Lynda Forsha, Curator and Dept. Head, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art; Peter Frank, art critic, L.A. Weekly and Visions Art Quarterly editor - jurors.
1989 Diego Rivera Gallery,Women's History Week Show,San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA.

AWARDS AND HONORS:

" 1995 Juror's Award, SCAC Gallery, National '95 Small Works Exhibition, Cobleskill, NY; Jon Ippolito, artist and Exhibition Coordinator, Guggenheim Museum - juror.
" 1993 Purchase Award, Sonoma Museum of Contemporary Art, California Small Works 1993,
Santa Rosa, CA.
" 1992 Nominated for SECA Award, SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA.
" 1992 Honorable Mention, SCAC Gallery, National '92 Small Works Exhibition, Cobleskill, NY; Dan Cameron, New York art critic, writer and curator - juror.
" 1987 Edith L. Gilbertson Scholarship, Outstanding Student in 2D Area, University of Wisconsin at Madison.

REVIEWS AND PUBLICATIONS:

" Laudon's Incongruous Images Cross Many Lines, Mary Louise Schumacher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 28, 2005.
" Karen Laudon: "Cross sections," Erin Kane, MKE Online, July 25, 2005.
" Sight Unseen: San Francisco Art Institute 120th Annual Exhibition, essay by Stephanie Ellis, San Francisco, CA, January 2002.
" The Gallery at Villa Montalvo, Selected Exhibitions From 1996 Through 2000, Curated by Theres Rohan, critical essay by Mary Hull Webster, 2001.
" Visual Responses to "The Little Prince" and "Envisioning the Cosmos", by Berin Golonu, Previews, Artweek, November 2000.
" Waterbones Exhibit Moves Toward the Abstract, by Shari Kaplan, Los Gatos Weekly Times, January 15, 1997.
" In and Out Again, by Casey FitzSimons, Artweek, May 6, 1993.

PERMANENT COLLECTIONS:

TW Trust, Dallas, TX
Flyswat, Inc., San Francisco, CA
Sonoma Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Rosa, CA
Numerous private collections.

SELECTED TEACHING AND RELATED EXPERIENCE:

" Juror, Beloit College Student Art Exhibition, Beloit, WI: 2007.
" Painting Instructor, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA: 1999.
" Scenic Designer/Painter, Palo Alto Children's Theater: 1993-1997.
" Private lessons in painting and drawing, 1993-1997.
" Juror of Fine Arts, Sonoma-Marin Fair, Petaluma, CA, 1993 and 1995.
" Drawing and Painting Instructor, San Francisco Art Institute Adult Extension Education: 1992-93.
" Drawing and Painting Teaching Assistant to San Francisco Art Institute Instructors Julius Hatofsky, Ivan Majdrakoff, Gregory Amenoff, and Therese Oulton: 1991-1992.

Karen Laudon

Artist Statement

Cross sections is an ongoing series of related drawings, paintings, and objects that strive to represent the physical experience becoming spiritual, as in illness, death, and birth. Working through some of the same ideas in three different media allows me to explore ideas in greater depth and has led to a stronger physicality in the paintings. I view these works within the painting tradition of memento mori; reminders of mortality (and life and immortality.) These works operate in the present tense: becoming, dying, growing, decaying, transforming, coalescing. Images and implications of the body, plant, animal, soil, rock, water, bone and natural forms function as fossils or relics in the alchemy of body becoming "other". I strive to bridge abstraction and representation, emphasizing process and the build up of layers as part of this transformation to impart more the feeling than description of the body, relating a sense of "being a body" in this world.