In all-black paintings, Karen Gunderson conjures vast landscapes through what critic Gerard McCarthy described in Art in America as a “deft working of surface texture alone.” He continues, “Over the past eighteen years the Wisconsin-born New York artist has perfected a technique whereby pictorial illusions result from white light reflected off the raised edges of varied brushstrokes.”
Due to the way in which light reflects off of the black paint, Gunderson’s canvases sparkle, shift, and change as viewers move about the artworks.