Installation view of “Fragments and Selected Scraps: The Works of Karsten Creightney” on view at Wichita Falls Museum of Art
What is fact? What is fiction? How do we navigate these questions in our everyday lives? These questions form the heart of Fragments and Selected Scraps: The Works of Karsten Creightney on view at Wichita Falls Museum of Art. With a wide range of prints and collaged paintings spanning the past decade of Creightney’s career, visitors are treated to a fun opportunity to explore the scavenged materials of an artist and explore how he creatively reconstructs the written world.
Karsten Creightney, “Night Canna,” 2018, lithograph and monoprint
It may be tempting to start at the entry wall, but I encourage visitors to start with Night Canna (2018). It is not the earliest work, nor is it necessarily emblematic of the collage that fills the show; however, I argue it best sets the stage for truly appreciating Creightney’s work. It is a deceptively simple lithographic rendering of a white canna bloom with several leaves enveloping its base. The background is a black monoprint with linear forms creating a subtle pattern. This eloquent mixing of patterns and techniques truly encapsulates Creightney’s style, an additive approach that he has since expanded on through collage and painting.
Karsten Creightney has a comprehensive educational background in a variety of media. He received his studio art BA in 2000 and an MFA in 2011 with a focus on painting and drawing, in addition to training as a professional printer at Tamarind Institute. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor in printmaking at The University of New Mexico. For visitors less familiar with the medium of printmaking, the exhibition has carefully provided interpretive elements to illustrate the relief-printing process. There is also a hands-on creative space for guests to explore the process of collage with materials sourced by the artist. Thus the exhibition is as focused on the educational as it is on the aesthetic value of Creightney’s work.
Karsten Creightney, “Street Magician,” 2020, collage, acrylic, oil, and wax on canvas
Creightney’s exceptional technique is clearly on view in Street Magician (2020), an artwork that combines woodcut prints, trace monotypes, and photo-transfers collaged in a single work and further enhanced through painting. In this work, three figures stand in the middle of a road that winds off into a fairly desolate distance. The central feminine figure has a tri-partite face rooted in a swirl of lines that suggests a heart. I cannot help but wonder whether Creightney is referencing indigenous figurative forms, or if this is meant to connote the many faces we each may wear. Behind her a masculine figure stands, looking down at a pair of cards. While cards often evoke the vice of gambling, Creightney regularly draws upon the motif of cards to hint at the gamble we all take in life, particularly as we choose the paths we will follow. This motif is clearly extended through Creightney’s inclusion of a road stretching into the distance, a theme that recurs in this exhibition and Creightney’s larger body of work. To complete the trio of figures, a young man gazes upon a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Flowers are such powerful symbols, indicating a connection to nature, love, memorialization, and blossoming hope. Tombstones flank the road in the foreground, while power lines and crosses line the road in the distance. There are other signs of life in the image, a figure on a bicycle and some small homes, yet the overall scene feels quiet, stark, and unnervingly devoid of bright color. Keeping in mind this work was created in 2020, I cannot help making associations with the unease and destabilization brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. What would the path forward look like? How many would be lost along the way? Each decision held risks and heading out into the world often felt like a risky proposition. Yet there were still some core themes that held many of us together, such as love, hope, and a sense of respite in nature.
Karsten Creightney, “Stadium,” 2020, collage, acrylic, oil, and wax on canvas
Another remarkable work in the exhibition is Stadium (2020). In an exhibition filled with color, the black-and-white palette is in part what makes this work so striking. A glass cup holds a small bouquet of flowers on a table with a patterned cover. If one looks closely, there is a striping pattern that peaks through the water of the vase that is reminiscent of the United States flag. In the background, a figure rests on a loveseat in front of a window. Beyond the window a sign reads “STADIUM LIQUORS…..COLD BEER.” I adored the inclusion of this sign, as it hints at a humble setting. Often when thinking of still life, we think of the traditional still life with lush flowers and luxurious items in an aristocratic setting. This to me feels unpretentious, true to real working or middle class life. The interior space is simple and neat, but not overly fancy. Yet it is clear that care was taken to set out fresh flowers on a lovely tablecloth. To me this work is about finding beauty in every day and in every space.
While Creightney’s body of work may not initially come across as overtly political, I find a powerful message about urban life in this work. Nature is a powerful resource. It provides life through water, clean oxygen, healthy foods, and opportunities to engage in movement. Over the past century, communities of color have been clustered in areas that are disconnected from nature, through dense urbanization, pollution of land and water by inequitable zoning, inadequate and outdated utilities (specifically water and sewage), and underinvestment in green amenities. Environmental justice is a social justice issue that is a necessary component in the battle to combat systemic racism in the United States. The placement of a humble glass of flowers in the foreground of this artwork centralizes the issue of access to and connection with nature.
Karsten Creightney, “Lagoon,” 2016, collage, acrylic, oil, and wax on canvas
The works in this exhibition span a wide range of years, creating a mid-career retrospective. However, the arrangement is fluid, rather than linear. An earlier work on view is Lagoon (2016). A nude Black woman lounges on a striped beach towel resting on a beautiful sandy beach with flowers extending from behind her. She faces away from the viewer towards the blue water and a wading figure. In the background, a green volcano dominates the background, erupting into a gray cloud of collaged smoke. I must admit that as a Black woman I am leery of male artists using Black female nudes in their work, given the history of exoticization and commodification of the bodies of women of color. However, this work does not have that tone for me. Instead, as a viewer, I felt invited to inhabit this woman’s perspective, and enjoy the beauty of this scene while considering the impending danger. I am left considering the potential impending dangers this woman and all of us are facing. How volatile will the climate crisis become? What challenges will communities of color continue to face in the United States and around the globe? This was a prescient painting in 2016 and remains so in 2024.
Karsten Creightney, “Lightning Storm,” 2020, collage, acrylic, oil, and wax on canvas
Sunflowers are my favorite flowers. There is something so hopeful and optimistic about them. At their core, they are hearty, resilient flowers able to thrive in harsh settings, but their ability to endure is in large part, because they are always seeking the light, seeking the sunshine. I think that metaphor beautifully encapsulates Lightning Storm (2020). In this artwork, several bolts of lightning fill a darkened sky over bustling Las Vegas. It seems the lights of the city strip attempt to rival that of nature, creating an overwhelming feeling of power and energy. Yet the viewer feels safely removed, observing this scene through glass windows from a homely interior. The walls are a bare gray and the floors a simple red, but foregrounded in the center is a table with two vases of flowers, sunflowers on the left, white flowers (perhaps cannas) on the right. The flowers provide a sense of comfort. When overwhelmed by the world around, there is beauty and refuge to be found in the simple pleasure of nature. These flowers also serve as a subtle reminder of the power of nature. As we build our metropolises, we cannot forget the ability of nature to rival the power of humans.
In many ways, this exhibition is all about power. Yes, the power of nature is an important theme, but the power of humanity, and the artist specifically, should not go unnoticed. The primary medium of the exhibition, collage, emphasizes this. Creightney has sourced many bits of images and ideas in the form of text, removed them from their context, and re-presented them in new forms that spark the thoughts, opinions, and imaginations of the viewer. In the exhibition’s introductory panel, Creightney states, “We live in a chaotic time it seems to me, simultaneously hyper-connected and disconnected. In this age of the endless scroll, the stream of information in news, images, and videos has become gratuitous, contorted, disjointed, fragmented, and overwhelming.” The artist is imposing a new order and new narrative on the detritus of the information age. As he parses through the fragments to decide what is worth salvaging and how to reconstruct them into a coherent form, he reminds us that all knowledge is constructed in this way. The true challenge is to decide where the focus lies — in the elements of source materials or the gloss that unifies them into a singular narrative.
Fragments and Selected Scraps: The Works of Karsten Creightney is on view at the Wichita Falls Museum of Art until August 10, 2024.
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