Kara Greenwell

I tell the tales women are taught to hide. As an abstract artist, my gestural, mixed media paintings juxtapose vivid personal narratives with provocative feminist themes. For as long as I can remember, I struggled with expectations of femininity. As a youth, I learned girls should be small, be quiet, and be obedient. As an adult, I heard women should be wives, mothers, and caregivers. But surely females can do more, can be more?

My practice challenges conventional notions of femininity with large-scale, aggressive gestures and confrontational messaging. In layering traditional painting materials with up-cycled ephemera such as children’s artwork, delivery packages, and dress patterns, I deconstruct domesticity while reassembling my own definition of womanhood. A flurry of emotion and intention, my work illuminates the impossible mix of optimism and despair defining femininity today.