Artist Statement

My work cultivates appreciation and understanding of the ecosystems we inhabit, raising awareness of our mutual dependence with the land and all that dwell within. I use drawing and abstraction to examine order and chaos in nature, as metaphors for loss, longing, and uncertainty in a rapidly unraveling world.

My garden and neighborhood serve as my laboratory, a space where ecology and care are intertwined. I closely observe the signs and cycles of ecological systems, both visible and invisible, reweaving a deeper connection to the earth, knowledge key to our collective survival. Collecting, preserving, and documenting species and phenomena in these spaces provides source material for the work. I incorporate natural materials – roots, inks made with plant material, and seeds – alongside more traditional drawing and painting media. Expressive, repetitive mark-making is a meditative practice, symbolizing communication or signaling among species and their environment. Lines, mapping, and edges indicate the boundaries and divisions humans use to distance themselves from other biological beings and hierarchical notions of control.

As I swing on a pendulum between grief and hope, we cannot deny that we are living on a planet in crisis. My work reflects on the importance of building an interdependent community during this moment to become better stewards of a livable future. Pay attention – time is of the essence.

Biography

Kariann Fuqua is an abstract artist using drawing and painting to investigate the edges of environmental disaster. She received her BFA in painting from Kansas State University and an MFA in painting from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her work has been widely exhibited in solo and group shows across the United States including Stand4 Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Jenkins-Johnson Gallery (San Francisco, CA), Governors Island (New York, NY), Hyde Park Arts Center (Chicago, IL), Byron Cohen Gallery (Kansas City, MO), Manifest Gallery and Drawing Center(Cincinnati, OH), Stoveworks (Chattanooga, TN), Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (Athens, GA), and the Mississippi Museum of Art (Jackson, MS). In 2008, she was awarded a public commission at McCormick Place in Chicago. She received a Joan Mitchell Foundation full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Mississippi Arts Commission. She was recently awarded grants from the Puffin Foundation and South Arts, and her work was published in New American Paintings, F Stop Magazine, Art Spiel, and the Artist’s Magazine. She currently lives and works in Oxford, Mississippi, where she is an Instructional Associate Professor of Art and Director of Museum Studies at the University of Mississippi.