Philadelphia-born and based Karen Kilimnik conjoins components while constructing her own universe. Whether portraits, still lifes, or landscapes, the artist filters her inner imaginary world through source material procured from museum catalogues and exhibitions. Drawing correspondences between romantic tradition and consumer culture, Kilimnik’s work brings a haunting and contrary sense of beauty to contemporary art. The world of the ballet and childhood, romantic painting and pop music, icons of film and fashion, witchcraft, time-travel, and crime comprise an imagery that has been culled from the fairytale and recent past into an unsettling present. In a world where the forces of nature, youth, and terror have taken awesome hold, Kilimnik’s paintings rematerialize a quest for the romantic sublime.

Often fascinated by life in England, for the witche’s stables Kilimnik transports us to Hampshire, home of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Florence Nightingale. Rather than a castle or grand estate, the artist has chosen a farmhouse and stable, her title insinuating that this is where sorcery takes place.