Every single morning for the entire year of 2016, Karen Fisher had a very particular routine. As she finished her breakfast, she would open a fashion magazine — from a collection of international Vogue, W, Elle, and National Geographic — and start turning the pages. Then she’d go back through, tearing out every page she found interesting: hand and feet gestures, animals, patterns, flowers, anything botanical. Armed with a scalpel, she cut shapes from the pages and assembled them on an 11×14 sheet of paper, like a collagist version of Dr. Frankenstein — finishing each with a signature, the date, the source, and a title to match the experience.
“When I finished the project, I immediately wanted to see all of them together in one space,” she explained. “Since they are fashion-oriented, I wanted to show them in New York City during Fashion Week.” A year and a half later, her 366 collages went on display at 208 Bowery — the same week models started walking the runways of NYFW.
Presented in collaboration with Beckie Warren of the Instagram account Girl Sees Art, the exhibition — titled “Paper Dolls” — featured paintings alongside the collages. Fisher used social media to ask her followers which collages she should turn into paintings, identifying 12 — one for each month — which inspired new mixed-media works.
Whether it’s her contagious good mood or the generosity of her practice (you don’t often see a solo exhibition featuring more than 300 artworks by one artist), it’s hard not to appreciate the many talents of this former fifteen-year high school English teacher. Living between Dayton, Ohio and Denver, Colorado, Fisher has worked full-time on her art since 2012 and occasionally teaches at the Art Students League in Denver. Her plan for what’s next? “London Fashion Week!”
Karen Fisher, “Paper Dolls” @ 208 Bowery · September 7 – 16, 2018