FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
"THE ECSTASY OF FORBIDDEN DAYLIGHT"
Alexis Palmer Karl
School of Continuing and Professional Studies Gallery
Pratt Institute
Co-sponsored by Stephen Romano Gallery
Opening reception October 12th 6 - 8 2017
Exhibition dates October 12 - November 12 2017
144 West 14th street 2nd Floor New York, New York.
Alexis Palmer Karl "Scrying Bowl" Found antlers, Obsidian , calabash bowl, water 2017
Pratt Institute and Stephen Romano Gallery are pleased to present a solo exhibition by New York artist Alexis Palmer Karl entitled “ THE ECSTASY OF FORBIDDEN DAYLIGHT” Oct 12-Nov 12 with an opening reception for the artist OCT 12th 6-8.
“THE ECSTASY OF FORBIDDEN DAYLIGHT” is an immersive multi media experience involving sculpture, photography, painting, sound and film which explores the pull of magic lifting the veil between our world and the spirit realm.
Alexis Palmer Karl is a Multimedia artist who works in sculpture, painting, photography, film and dark ambient music with her bands LEX and Parallax Born, who release their music with Onyudo Records.
Alexis Palmer Karl "Ritual Skulls" Bone, obsidian. quartz, amethyst, moonstone, agate, petrified wood 2017
Alexis's work has been exhibited in the states and internationally, with performances at the Whitney Biennial and Guggenheim Museum, and is represented in New York by Stephen Romano Gallery. Alexis's work explores the reinventing of oracular magic and ritualistic objects and the redefining of the witch archetype.
The work reinvents sacred ritualistic objects, and presents a portrait of Oracles who, while bound by this mortal coil, can see a world beyond. Inspired by her scholarly research and lectures of historical accounts of witchcraft and folkloric magic spell books, Karl's work recasts and shifts the powerful Witch archetype.
Alexis Palmer Karl Film Still from "Oracle" 2017
Alexis Palmer Karl Film Still from The Ecstasy of Forbidden Daylight 2017
A painted and filmed coven harness elements of the earth to do their magic; borrowing from death to bring new life, they are archetypal and goddess -like in their power. Obsidian- laden scrying bowls and black a Quartz pendulum reveal the future, and call forth spirits.
The work challenges the viewer to embrace the artist’s reinvention of magical practices, and brings into the light which has for centuries been seen as dark. The exhibition includes Animal Familiar ritual bowls, ritual bowls that secure love spells, and witch bottles to bind malevolent spirits.
Alexis Palmer Karl "Witch Bottles" 1800's glass bottles, hair, wine, urine, bent nails, red thread, red ribbon,
devils claw, 35 million year old fossilized amber oil, leather, wax, garnet, smoky quartz 2017
ALEXIS PALMER KARL BIO
Alexis Palmer Karl is a multidisciplinary artist, professor at Pratt Institute and School of Visual Arts, and scholar and lecturer on magic and ritualism in art, fashion and fragrance. She has lectured extensively on ritualistic shamanic practices and folkloric magic, and the relevance of ritual within artistic culture at both the Metropolitan Museum and The Morbid Anatomy Museum, where she was the house perfumer and an exhibiting artist.
Karl’s art work is concerned with a reinterpretation of magical objects and the illustration of oracular magic through sculpture, film, gothic dark ambient music, ritual fragrance, and large scale portraits of witches. Her upcoming solo exhibition at Pratt Institute, “The Ecstasy of Forbidden Daylight”, is based on studies of 18th century accounts of witchcraft trials from her research in the UK, and a series of her lectures at The Morbid Anatomy museum, and serves to bring the archetype of the Witch into the modern era.
for further information please contact Suzanne de Vegh | Program Director at Pratt Institute sdevegh@pratt.edu
Alexis Karl alexispalmerkarl@gmail.com
Stephen Romano romanostephen@gmail.com
