Employing unconventional surfaces such as truck doors, animal hides, and cigarette packs, Greta Karr’s solo exhibition Americana examines the complexities of American culture, history, and identity. By departing from the customary stretched canvas, she dismantles the conventions of tradition and engages with a broader material dialogue. Karr’s work investigates themes including industrialization, consumerism, addiction, beauty ideals, and the Western world’s estrangement from nature and the self.
Deeply influenced by a personal reverence for animals and the natural environment, Karr integrates symbolic imagery and the remnants of creatures destroyed by our modern world to evoke layered narratives of American life. Her work also confronts the construction and commodification of beauty, exposing its performative nature and societal imposition. Through fragmented forms and materials once considered disposable, she deconstructs the persona of beauty—revealing its distortions, contradictions, and costs, particularly for women.
Through sculptural and integrative performative elements that expand the exploration of Americana, Karr invites you to engage in private spaces and shed layers—examining not only the disparity of wealth and privilege, but also the illusion of beauty as a currency in American identity.
