Artwork Description
Karen Yank – Expansion
Dimensions: 72.25 x 72.25″
Year: 2021
Medium: steel and stainless steel
The circle and the cross appear thematically throughout Karen Yank’s practice. Circles can be the center of a flower, the face of a clock, a yin-yang, or a metaphor for the re-appropriation of energy through the cycles of life and death. The antitheses of her mentor, Agnes Martin’s square. In contrast, the cross can be a mathematical placeholder, a metaphor for where two forces meet, the marker for something precious, or a nonverbal sign of honesty and fidelity in the middle ages. Together the two symbols carry ancient iconographic gravity from the structure of our solar system, these cross-cultural spiritual meanings. Both powerful and metaphysical, the simple and enduring forms connect Yank’s sculptures to ancient mark-making and the universal human need to create.