Karin Dahl
Artist Statement
I come to my artistic work from a career in academia. My work as a professor included research and teaching about Emergent Literacy, particularly children’s composing processes. I studied the marks that young children made when inventing letter-like forms. Their enthusiastic attempts inspire my current sense of line and marks today. Color dominates my thinking as I develop paintings. My process is an unruly one where my intentions for a painting are changed by ideas from the developing work. I engage with new possibilities and use what I know to respond. My fascination is with the emerging set of ideas and the challenge of developing them in a process. What keeps me painting is my respect for this open-ended process and the quality of its surprises. Education includes many years of independent art study with private teachers and a Ph.D. in Language Studies.
Color dominates my thinking as I develop paintings. My abstract paintings are inspired by a fascination with color and mark-making. I tune into the colors around me paying attention to unusual combinations and possibilities. Various kinds of marks and groupings of lines in my paintings help to guide the viewer’s attention and focus. They are ways I make meaning and say something.
EXHIBITS
Solo Exhibition
How Does Color Sound?
McConnell Art Center
April - June 2024
James Art Gallery Group Exhibit
Columbus, Ohio
October – December 2024
Solo Exhibition Art and Jazz
Cultural Arts Center
Columbus, Ohio | October 2021
Solo Exhibition Art and Jazz
The James Art Gallery
December 2021
Solo Exhibition
The Ohio State University Faculty Club
2010
JURIED EXHIBITS
Annual Juried Art Exhibition
Zanesville Museum of Art
Zanesville, Ohio | 2019, 2018
Fine Arts Competition
The Ohio State Fair Columbus, Ohio | 2016, 2015 Statewide juried exhibition
D’art for Art
Columbus Museum of Art Columbus, Ohio | 2016 Biennial fundraiser hosted by the Women’s Board of the Columbus Museum of Art in support of the Museum’s special programming
Annual Bryn Du Art Show
Bryn Du Mansion Granville, Ohio | 2017, 2015, 2014, 2011 Awarded First Prize, Professional Division, 2015
INVITATIONAL EXHIBITS
Vision of Color
High Road Gallery
Worthington, Ohio | 2022
It’s All Abstract
Art Access Gallery Columbus, Ohio | 2019
Invitational Exhibition Ohio State Department of Education Columbus, Ohio | 2016
20th Anniversary Exhibit
The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology Newark, Ohio | 2015
Artworks Ray’s Living Room
Short North, Columbus, Ohio | 2013
Medium and Message
The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology Newark, Ohio | 2013
Brushes with Art
The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology Newark, Ohio |
ACADEMIC PREPARATION
Indiana University Ph. D. College of Arts and Sciences Academic History
The Ohio State University Professor Emeritus in Language, Literacy and Culture | 2003 - Present
Full Professor in Language, Literacy and Culture | 1999 - 2003
INTERNATIONAL TEACHING
Critical Thinking Program, Open Society Institute
Chiang Mail, Thailand | 2001 - 2004
Tashkent, Uzbekistan | 1998 - 2001