Slow Is Smooth Smooth Is Fast
Artist Bio
Ester Karnoski was born in Jerusalem but grew up in Seattle, where she studied Psychology and Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington prior to pursuing her MFA at the California College of the Arts. She is a figurative painter and burgeoning weaver, working primarily in oil and handwoven textiles. She was a 2021 recipient of the Cadogan Contemporary Art Award.
Artist Statement
My artwork is driven by the desire to celebrate surfaces, in paintings and textiles as well as in memories, relationships, and culture. To borrow from Susan Sontag’s “Notes on ‘Camp,’” I aspire to be “serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious” in my art. By using references from pop culture and my personal archive of informal photography, I aim to honor non-heroic qualities like shallowness, indulgence, and sentimentality.