Karen Tronel’s solo exhibition; “Making sense of What Remains”. comprises a variety of works made between 2020 and 2023, primarily using found objects, offcuts, by-products, and accumulated waste materials that have been repurposed, recuperated, and reshaped. This will be Tronel’s first solo exhibition with Fiumano Clase, having previously been exhibited in the 2020 “Discoveries: Biting Point” which she also curated.
“There was an urgency to making some of the work in this exhibition; a need to bring some sense of order and organisation to a chaotic, ominous, changing, and uncontrollable time through automatic or repetitive process, a defined rhythm, an exploration of pattern and a concentrated focus on materials and their perceived value.
Doodles were drawn on every available space in an old lined notebook (the only paper immediately to hand in early 2020), habitually discarded materials were preciously collected and preserved with a view to using them in creative endeavours to be later defined, found objects and leftover materials from previous works were saved and transformed into works in their own right and the remains of old ideas were reinvigorated and given a new lease of life in the new ensuing context. “
Karen Tronel, 2023
What began as doodles in a lined notebook has grown into a complete body of work. On returning to her studio Tronel was able to develop and expand upon the outlines of ideas. Items that had been kept awaiting a purpose were now given a new lifespan. Cardboard packaging was used to make stencils. Pieces of leftover canvas were unpicked strand by strand and reshaped into canvas coils. Strands of dried paint have been stripped from an old sculpture and reassembled piece by piece to form a ‘sheet’ of paint, thus becoming a new surface.
In a series of mosaics Tronel has taken discarded duck and hen eggshells to create intricate works with each fragment individually selected and placed within the mosaic with fine tweezers. As is a regular theme of Tronel’s practice, she injects new potential into an object or material. In this case, what would usually be thrown away has become the very essence of the artwork; subject and material merging, giving attention to, and creating value in something that usually has none in our everyday lives.
In addition to the collection of objects and (re)using them to create new works of art Tronel is also interested in the idea of letting go of items that have been held onto. Finally giving them an existence, justifying their conservation and accumulation. The works in this exhibition focus on materiality, questioning the relationship we have with things around us, the things we hold onto dearly and the things we throw away without a second thought.
Through experimental process, discovery, contemplation and response to the materials, different series of works were developed that together make up the exhibition and, within their own histories, attempt to make sense of what remains.
