Karena Karras

Artistic Vision

Karras’s work bridges the conscious and profound, weaving classical mythology and Jungian psychology to explore the collective unconscious. Each piece transforms personal dreams into universal symbolism.
Inviting viewers into transformative landscapes, she encourages exploring the relationship between physical and spiritual worlds, where enigmatic figures mirror internal metamorphoses.

"The Dinner Party. Telling Lies at One Table, they eat their own eggs"

"The Diabolical Seduction of Self" from the collection at the Rockford Museum of Art, Rockford, IL.

"The Lie"

Leonora Carrington and Karena Karras shared a close friendship and mentorship in the 1990s in Oak Park, IL. that bridged generations of Surrealist art. They met in late 1992 at a Gallery opening in the well known River North area of Chicago, IL. After a brief conversation they realized that they lived within minutes of each other, as Carrington resided in Oak Park, IL. at the time and Karras lived right outside of Oak Park in the city proper. Leonora asked Karena to come by her place sometime and go to have lunch which she did and during the lunch in an Oak Park restaurant called Erics they spent nearly the entire time debating whether or not the word 'metaphysics' should be in the dictionary.

They were soon close friends and spent much of their time together going out to eat, shopping and sitting in Leonora's kitchen discussing dreams, art, life and eating chocolate. Leonora would always make them both one of her favorite drinks which included Bombay gin, lime juice, peppercorns and ginger ale while they sat at the kitchen table comparing notes about life family and dreams which Leonora was very much into discussing the meaning of.

Carrington was considered the established "Surrealist Muse" who slowly rose to fame after her direct involvement with the Surrealist movement began in 1937 after meeting the pioneer surrealist painter Max Ernst in London after which she began interacting with prominent figures like André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, and Marcel Duchamp.

While Karras was a much younger artist who emerged from the downtown school of the Art Institute of Chicago and was active in the Chicago women's art galleries and happenings within and without those various galleries such as the Women's Caucus for Art and Woman Made Gallery and ARC Gallery where Karras curated a show of art by blind artists from throughout the Chicago area called "Visions", and had the blind and deaf performance artist Geraldine "Jerrie" Lawhorn do a performance piece for the opening of the show . Karras had to learn sign language for the opening of the show in order to commune with Lawhorn.

"The Dinner Party. Telling Lies At One Table , They Eat Their Own Eggs" 72" by 24" In a Private Collection