Visual artist regroups, grows during pandemic

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This article was published 26/07/2021 (1559 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Artist Karen Cornelius has lived all over the world and enjoyed some unique experiences. They have all influenced her art, so it’s no surprise the COVID-19 pandemic has too.

Cornelius’ art was recently featured in the online virtual exhibition Fading in and Out of Glory www.kunstmatrix.com. The show featured mixed media drawings inspired by the emotional rollercoaster caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In several ways, the exhibit allowed Cornelius to continue her evolution as artist and creator, and hers has been an interesting path.

Born in the United States, she grew up in the Congo and attended high school in Kenya. After returning stateside for university, where she earned a degree from Philadelphia’s Moore College of Art, she moved to Ottawa before settling in Winnipeg.

She has also worked and lived for 30 months in Eritrea; and her work has also taken her to China, Africa, Europe, South America, the High Arctic, Caribbean, and across North America. African influences are seen in her work, as are prairie landscapes.

Like most everyone else, the pandemic upset Cornelius’ work life. Residencies in Bali and Boston were cancelled and she could not even venture to local studios to make new plates for her electronic etching.

Limited to working at home, Cornelius found inspiration in her back yard. That was where her hydrangeas were growing and in many ways, they reflected life during COVID-19.

“I had to refocus and try to find something to process everything,” Cornelius said. “Much like us the hydrangeas follow the seasons.”

Like the hydrangeas, we have all gone through stages during the pandemic, Cornelius said. The summer of 2020 brought hope of a return to normalcy, a re-opening. For a time we flourished, before fall came and we realized we had to wait for the next rebirth.

Cornelius wasn’t about to wait for spring, so began to explore new avenues of creation and ways to expand her skill set. Those include an ongoing virtual world tour, whereby she is visiting creators in nine different cities to learn about environmentally responsible methods of printmaking. She also taught 250 students from around the world online and produced YouTube instructional videos.

Then there were the virtual exhibits, which brought plenty of positives, Cornelius said. While normally there is the rush of the opening night and then more of a calm, the virtual experience was different.

“I was surprised with the amount of engagement,” she admitted. “I received texts from all over the world. It was really fun. I was afraid of being isolated and wondered if anybody would watch.”

Moving forward Cornelius will continue to build an online presence, as she said a lesson of the pandemic is not being able to rely solely on old methods of getting your work seen.