Adele Karmazyn: Art featured in Dream Catcher Magazine, Art extrapolated by Greg McGee

ADELE KARMAZYN

Creating great art is a quest for quality that comes accompanied with timelessness. This is true of poetry. There is a canon of poems in every culture around the world that has inbuilt an ingredient of transcendental excellence: it's almost impossible to define, but when one experiences it and its living, wriggling eloquence, one is fully aware of its ability to eclipse such pedestrian restrictions as culture, language, and indeed Time. 

It is to timelessness, therefore, we should look, not only as an appertaining mark of quality, but as the subject matter itself. 'Behind Me Dips Eternity', writes Emily Dickinson; John Clare proffers 'An Invite, To Eternity'; Shakespeare's Sonnets meditate relentlessly on the dateless cycle of love and time. It would be pithy to claim that when a work of art ruminates on the achievement of timelessness it harnesses that very objective, but it's worth noting that when the artist skewers Time and does it very well, the resulting work of art is endowed with that extra armour plated mark of quality. Visual artists as well as poets are able to achieve this. Adele Karmazyn is a fine example of how the medium and message begin to intersect like a Venn diagram, and the overlap, timelessness, is increasingly intriguing.

Her art is primarily based on the building block of 19th century photographs, which she scans and then begins to digitally embellish and tweak. The time frame references, all stiff poses and sepia tinged melancholia, are filtered through a Steampunked vision, so the literary vibe is lent an uncanny and cutting-edge humour and heft.  The approach, where image is created with no less than 40 digital layers to build a cohesive and intricate picture, has caught the attention of art collectors from across the UK. Says Adele, ‘I collect imagery all the time. Every path I take, everywhere I look I see material I can use. Sometimes I capture it in my mind, sometimes with my camera. My work involves scanning 19th century photographs of which I have a growing collection. With these I intertwine modern day backgrounds, photographs and objects to take the viewer into new worlds and timeless places.”  

The series found here (in Dream Catcher Magazine) creates a scene of curiosity and wonder. Placing the high society of the 19th century with an urban graffiti backdrop is always going to amuse, seduce, and discombobulate.

Greg McGee, April 2019