Magical Thinking

Rosamund Felsen Gallery is pleased to announce Magical Thinking, an ambitious new exhibition featuring the work of Los Angeles painter Karen Liebowitz. For this, her second exhibition at the gallery, Liebowitz will paint a single large-scale mural – measuring 16 by 30 feet – on the wall in our main gallery.  

Karen Liebowitz’s mural is a continuation of her ongoing series “Manifesting Prophecy,” which explores apocalyptic stories and animal prophecy as alternate symbologies.  As in past works, Liebowitz starts with an ancient religious literary text and from it invents a new drama; a contemporary, if not futuristic, myth in which women are the main protagonists.  Liebowitz frequently paints the absurd alongside the miraculous, traversing the line between skepticism and faith – perhaps as a means of drawing our attention to the division – through female characters.  The women in these re-imagined myths depict and enroll the power of earthly human intervention in order to make the magical happen.  They demonstrate both overt and covert power, pointing to a new female identity that displays strength through nurturing, and an inherent sexuality that heightens their empowered nature.

Karen Liebowitz is an artist and educator in Los Angeles and has exhibited throughout the United States.  She holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon and an MFA from UCLA.