karen caldicott art and sculpture

do you ever wonder what it would be like if you chucked it all, left the city and moved out to the sticks? would you miss the option of thai food at 2 am? would your lungs expand from all the fresh air, and your mind expand out to the corners, in a more creative way? uk artist karen caldicott, a longtime brooklyn resident, currently makes her home in the beautiful hudson valley – and look at the amazing things she does! (okay, okay, she didn’t do it all out in the country.) you may know karen from her recent weekly contributions to new york magazine, where she created the disarmingly detailed plasticine models of important people and celebrities. these models were borne of an idea she had to bring her two dimensional illustrations to the next level. she would sketch, and create a clay model from it, then photograph the model and present both the two and three dimensional pieces together on display – quite an arduous process, and thorough and fluid too.

karen has explored her talents in a variety of media, with a seemingly effortless élan. she was drawn to the mix of urban and nature that gently used snow fuses into sculpture, and her strangely beautiful snow series of photographs was created.

her illustrations and artwork have piqued the interest of many clients, including the wall street journal, random house, the national law journal and time.

karen is now beginning to dabble in stop motion video and animation, a place where the progression of her clay pieces would naturally go (doesn’t it make sense?). this is a clip of johnny knoxville doing some moves (and i am really feeling a peter gabriel big time/sledgehammer-type vibe from this):

i am looking forward to seeing her refine and command this new medium, as she has consistently demonstrated with all the others she has used. there is also a certain smoothness in all these works that somehow makes their meaning clear, however simple or complex it may be.

karen’s marvelous clay heads will be on display in a show at the cooper union sometime next year. stay tuned for the details, and in the meantime check her website to see many more models, illustrations and photography!

thank you karen for all the info!