Elizabeth Karsch Is Making her Mark

Elizabeth Karsch starts each work of art with a single mark. The mark is unique, and of the moment. It is usually unplanned, and it is a raw expression of something that resides deep within.

“The mark is a release of energy,” she explained as we settled into chairs in her small Sag Harbor studio, unfinished works hanging on every wall. For Karsch, this release has to come about through art. Words are never enough.

“The languages we have are developed by patriarchal societies,” she said. “They’re gendered and established. But our feelings and experiences are uniquely our own. A mark I make is uniquely mine. It’s not a word that anyone else has used or will ever use again. It’s in the moment — it’s raw and honest and real.”

On March 18, Karsch’s work goes on view in a solo exhibition at Roman Fine Art in East Hampton. Perhaps one reason art became her medium was because spoken words have often come up short. Karsch has worked with a stutter her whole life, and expressing herself through words alone always felt insufficient. She recalls being in high school, and her mother racing to get her ready for speech therapy. Karsch just sat on the stairs and asked her, “Why me?”

But now she knows. She may have had challenges to overcome with speech, but it gave her this alternate way to express herself — a way that might be more representative of her truth than any word could be.

“I use art as a language,” she said. “Mark making is really unique — it’s my language and it isn’t anybody else’s.”

Art has given her the tools to navigate the most challenging chapters in life, like the loss of her parents.

“After my mom passed away, I had years where I only made work about her loss and grief,” Karsch said. “It was all black and white work — I didn’t use any color at all. And then I made one large landscape that I brought a little bit of yellow into.”

She felt like she was coming to the end of a long period of grieving, and she could finally bring color back into her work. And the language she was speaking in this piece spoke to others in a way that transcended words. She recalled hanging the work in a group exhibition, and a man — another artist — walked over to the piece.

“I saw his shoulders going up and down,” she said. “He was quietly weeping. I didn’t want to interrupt him.”

After a few minutes, the man looked up and saw her. He told her that he had lost his mother a few years prior, and he didn’t know why, but being with her painting made him feel as if his own mother was there beside him.

“I told him the piece was about the loss of my mother also, and that I hadn’t used color in years, but this bit of yellow was there because I felt like I was coming out of a period of hardness and into a period of light. We hugged and stood there together,” said Karsch, “and we shared a bond over the loss of our mothers. I never knew him before or saw him since. But if I have one human who has a reaction and a connection to one piece, then that’s a gift I’ve been given and I can give others.”

Since then, the colors in Karsch’s work have exploded. In her upcoming solo exhibition at Roman Fine Art in East Hampton, the large scale works are filled with light and brightness. All the pieces were created over the two years of the pandemic, and they are expressions of the emotions and events that arose in this tumultuous time. The energy of each painting is palpable, and Karsch attributes that to the podcasts, the news, the emotions, and the music she was experiencing while she worked.

“These last few years, a lot has been coming up in our society,” she said. “Our energies have expanded and clashed. So much has happened in the universe, but in our individual lives, we’ve been stifled and closed in our homes.”

But Karsch has a narrative – a visual one that’s filled with what she refers to as “little time capsules.” She’s taken the raw energy of this era and she’s made her marks, in a language that only she can speak, but many of us can understand.

Elizabeth Karsch’s solo exhibition opens on March 17, with an opening reception on March 18 from 5 to 7 p.m. Roman Fine Art is located at 26 Goodfriend Drive in East Hampton.