Karen Palsdottir

Lives and works in New York, NY, USA

Artist statement

My paintings explore the countless possibilities of cobalt blue, both as a material and as a symbol. Since 2019, I have worked primarily with this color, which has historically been regarded as “the perfect blue,” and ideal for capturing the sky and the sea. To me, Cobalt blue is more than just a hue, it evokes a sense of distance and depth. By limiting myself to a single color, I seek to simplify complex visual fields and draw attention to subtle tonal shifts rather than contrasts between colors. These deliberate constraints distill forms down to their essence and invite viewers to see the world through a simplified, monochromatic lens, as if looking through a blue filter. Within this framework, I create paintings in which portraits and various objects are distorted through transparent, fluid shapes such as droplets, plants, and ribbons, many of which originate in three-dimensional digital models. When translated into soft, glass-like surfaces, these forms are meant to suggest movement and the refraction of light, disrupting and transforming the imagery beneath them. The source material often comes from portraits of those closest to me, and occasionally of myself. In these works, I explore the tension between clarity and distortion, between what is and what could be, between the familiar and the imaginable.

Artwork