Work by Karen Roulstone, who is a lecturer in Fine Art at Plymouth University, is featured in a new group exhibition at Galway Arts Centre called Between Dog and Wolf.
For this exhibition, seven artists were asked to respond to its title with existing work or with works in progress. The title refers to the French phrase “L’heure entre chien et loup” and is seen to describe several different things. It can refer to the twilight or gloaming hour when transformation can happen; people can take risks, adopt different characteristics or turn from one form into another.
When something is vague, unclear or unknown as to be mistaken for something else; i.e. a dog can be mistaken for a wolf, or vice versa. As well as that, when it can be hard to tell the difference between things, i.e. dogs and wolves, friends and foes. It’s not because one has turned into the other, but that the differences have been hidden so only similarities remain, giving a distorted perception. Curator Maeve Mulrennan was also interested in how the phrase relates time and light to the animal kingdom and the body.
Karen’s painting engages with diverse light forms and the way in which they create moments which are elusive and mysterious. She explores the way in which light oscillates and moves, registering on different levels of conscious/psychic recognition whilst creating strange spatial and temporal possibilities. Her work proposes a psychic space: fragmentary forms border on latent recognisability, suggestive of fleeting thoughts, spaces of illumination and the ethereal.
Between Dog and Wolf
27 January – 4 March 2017
Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street Lwr., Galway, Ireland.