Karen Baldner
Another Side/An Other Side

Media: Artist Book with embedded handmade paper

Artist Statement:
Another Side/An Other Side is a miniature book that offers a precarious haptic experience along one of its edges and a soothing one on its other edge. This piece follows the general inspiration of my workin the seeming paradox of opposites. I am interested in dichotomies of all sorts as they live side by side with each other in my own life, in that of others, and in the grander history of human kind: brutality and grace, coarseness and dignity, the beautiful and the grotesque. In my work each new piece is a kind of alchemic act towards living with this paradox. I like to see my work as a process of incompatibles not necessarily its resolution.

Biography

Karen Baldner grew up in Germany in a Jewish family who survived persecution by Nazi Germany. The haunted climate of Germany after the Holocaust became a pivotal experience and narrative for her work. Karen completed her formal studies in the US with a Masters Degree in Printmaking at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her work has been supported by state grants from Arkansas and Indiana, Fulbright and NEA grants, and is represented by Booklyn, Central Booking NY and Vamp & Tramp Booksellers. She shows extensively throughout the US and Europe and her work is in a number of public and private collections in the US, Canada and Germany. Karen teaches Book Arts, Letterpress and Papermaking at Herron School of Art & Design at IUPUI, Indianapolis, where she directs the Book Arts program.