Since 1990, Karen LaMonte has created sublime and enigmatic works in glass, ceramic, bronze, iron, paper, and marble. Her highly charged works of dresses and kimonos embody a challenge to historic conceptions of the female nude, and examine cultural ideals of beauty, gender, and identity. More Recent works by LaMonte focus on clouds and climate change, reflecting her long-standing fascination with themes of interlaced humanity and the natural world.
LaMonte received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and explored an early passion for glass sculpture at studios in New York and New Jersey. In 1999, she traveled to Prague on a Fulbright scholarship to work in the glass casting studios of Eastern Bohemia. In the early 2000s, LaMonte established a permanent studio in Prague, where she created her first major body of work: the series Absence Adorned.
Her work is held in major collections around the world including Smithsonian American Art Museum, MFA Boston, and the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
For more information, please see: www.KarenLaMonte.com, on Instagram @karenlamonte.artist, and Facebook.
Contemporary Amongst the Classics exhibition at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA. © Karen LaMonte
First, and most importantly, how are you doing? How are you navigating the highs and lows?
Relatively fine. I live and work with my husband and our dog Lucy. We have been lucky to go out with Lucy frequently and enjoy long walks in nature, which have kept me feeling positive and able to focus. I do have moments of frustration and, like the Queen of England, I combat those with tea and biscuits!
Artist and dog working on Cumulus 1:2, 2017. Marble. 94 x 86.5 x 69. in. © Karen LaMonte. Photo: Martin Polak
It's my experience that most artists engage with some level of self-isolation in their day to day art practice. Has this been your experience? And if so, have you found these innate rhythms to be helpful during this larger, world-wide experience of isolation?
Yes, I’ve always needed to have time alone and was lucky to be able to focus on the solo parts of my process. I am empowered by research, so I spend a lot of time reading. Also, I think of making artwork as giving ideas physical presence. Right at the beginning part, when it goes from ether to reality, is a very fragile time and I am most creative when I am alone.
Interestingly, this past year’s isolation and solitude let me think big. I have been working with large cloud forms for a couple of years, and was focused on how clouds reflect weather, a force that affects us all. The pandemic drove home how connected we are as a species, even if we don’t always feel that way. Covid pushed me to think even more broadly, not just about my cloud sculptures, but all the work that I do and have ever done—and its impact on the planet. I decided to make my work not just sustainable, but carbon-negative. I just offset double the total carbon footprint of all my artwork with an organization called Cool Effect.
Also, I was midstride on a monograph published by Rizzoli, so we were able to complete that working remotely. Plus, my research brought me full circle and I’ve reconnected with the climatologists that I worked with on the original Cumulus sculpture. I’m taking a new look at clouds in direct relation to landscape and with the aim of reinterpreting the iconographic images of the American West.
Karen LaMonte, Cumulus 1:8, 2020. Alabaster, Marble, and Marble. 28 x 24 x 22 in. © Karen LaMonte. Photo: Martin Polak
It would be great if you could briefly talk us through your practice. Understanding it is integral to appreciating the multivalence of your work.
I’ve made two short videos, which explain things so much better than I can with just words. One video is about my work with clouds and the other is about Nocturnes.
Has any of your imagery shifted in a reflection to what's currently happening? And why, or why not?
My projects take years to develop — I am just finishing some sculptures that I started before Covid. I am sure this entire experience will influence my thinking and making but it is way too soon.
Artist working on Nocturne sculptures for cast iron, 2020. © Karen LaMonte
Artist working on Nocturne 5, 2020. Cast glass. 60. x 29 x 22 in. © Karen LaMonte
What is bringing you solace, or even joy, in this moment?
Reading, walking as much as possible and looking at history. I have been focusing on other pandemics and ‘catastrophic’ events that were inflection points in human history. I think this pandemic may save our natural environment, which would be just an amazing outcome. People’s thinking about how things must be is more fluid right now and everyone is thinking more openly about moving our society away from fossil fuels and other environmentally destructive cultural habits.
Karen LaMonte, Reclining Nocturne 4, 2018. Cast glass. 23 x 58 x 21 in. Exhibited at Glasstress 2019, Venice, Italy. © Karen LaMonte
Are you reading anything?
‘Walking’ by Henry David Thoreau, ‘The Last Man’ by Mary Shelley and ‘White Sky: The Nature of The Future’ by Elizabeth Kolbert.
Artist studio, 2020. © Karen LaMonte. Photo: Martin Polak.