Karen Kar Yen Law

Through integrating complementary printmaking and painting processes, I use a language of multiples, gradients, masking, and mark-making to create abstract artwork highlighted by colour and shape. Using personal experience as a springboard, I modi...

Through integrating complementary printmaking and painting processes, I use a language of multiples, gradients, masking, and mark-making to create abstract artwork highlighted by colour and shape. Using personal experience as a springboard, I modify and reproduce cultural iconography to investigate my connection to the Chinese diaspora, Canadian culture, and settler identity. Presently, I am experimenting with the incorporation of Chinese foods, Chinese culinary tradition and family recipes in my creative process. Conceptually tied to the fundamental principles of Chinese cuisine, my treatment of materials reflects the ethos of extracting every ounce of value from a culinary source, avoiding waste. For instance, the residual liquid from rehydrating dried shiitake mushrooms is repurposed due to its umami flavor. Following these principles, my printmaking practice adopts a slower and more intentional approach, ensuring the reuse of materials such as newsprint stencils and inked plates. Even typically discarded materials and byproducts are considered useful and have new purposes in artwork creation. The culmination of my artistic exploration results in two-dimensional, colourful and vibrant artwork. Karen Kar Yen Law (b. 1997) is a second-generation Cantonese-Chinese settler who lives on Williams Treaties land, the traditional land of the Anishinaabe, in Unionville, Ontario. Upon graduation from Queen’s University with a BFA (Honours) and BEd, Law was awarded the Andre Bieler Prize for achievement of the highest performance in studio work. Law was the 2021-2022 Emerging Printmaker Scholarship Residency holder at Open Studio Contemporary Printmaking Centre where she now practices as an artist member. Most recently, Law was the winner of the 2023 Untapped People’s Choice Award at Toronto’s independent artists fair, Artist Project. Law’s work has been exhibited throughout Kingston and Toronto, Ontario including Union Gallery, the Isabel Bader Centre for Performing Arts, Gallery 1313, Myseum Toronto, and Open Studio.