Karen Damico answers FAD Questions
Tuesday, February 20th, 20071 When did you start to make art?
I’ve always made art in some way, shape or form, even as a kid, but in a serious, more considered sense, I began in the late ‘90’s.
2 How did you evolve into a professional artist?
The evolutionary process really kicked in when I took a course at Chelsea in ’97, which was the catalyst that propelled me to take it seriously. From there I applied to art school, which solidified my commitment.
3 What drove you to make art as a professional vocation?
I had worked in the design industry for a number of years and got tired of articulating others’ ideas. I wanted to articulate my own.
4 Explain your inspiration?
Curiosity, first of all. A desire to understand the world around me and my world in particular. Maps of any kind, old documents and photographs, catalogues, diagrams, lists, records, tickets, fragments of text from just about any source. Also the traces that time inscribes on a surface; the soot on a candle snuffer, for example; cracks in the pavement, or the accumulation left from layer after layer of posters being pasted on and then torn off of the walls in the tube. Fragility inspires me, both in the physical sense - a spider’s web - as well as the metaphorical.
5 In what way does your inspiration transform into ideas?
I’m not sure how to answer that. Ideas begin to transform from inspiration in the form of a conversation, an observation or an experience. From there it’s an evolutionary process, really.
6 From Ideas to production of art – how? And why?
Sometimes I make assemblages, sometimes I make photographs or digital collages. I also produce a zine, which in a funny sort of way, is a curatorial exercise. A lot of my work incorporates text in one form or another so I tend to collect a lot of mundane stuff that, over a period of time, begins to find its way into the work. I like to categorise, organise and devise systems and that approach is part of the making process for me. As for ‘why’, I couldn’t possibly answer that in any sensible sort of way. Things just evolve and come into being.




