It’s hard to pin down joyfulness. It’s a transient emotion that is readily batted away by the complexities and pains of everyday life. One can almost forget what it feels like. Luckily, one of the crucial functions of art is to remind us all that joy does exist. This is not to say that all art is joyful; in fact, most art is decidedly not. For one reason or another, we as a society have deemed it necessary for art to make a statement if it is to be taken seriously. Fine art – a term I use unwillingly – must do away with joyfulness if it is ever to do away with earnestness, which is the antithesis of contemporary art. And yet, Maren Karlson defies this golden rule in her new show, “Petal’s Path,” on view at In Lieu.

Karlson’s works are incredibly passionate. They are ethereal landscapes and still-lifes which take the natural world and transpose it onto small canvases. Viriditas, one of the larger pieces, catches the eye with its sharp bisection of blue and white halves and its swirling, intersecting areas of earthy green. Within the small, often frame-within-frame drawings, Karlson summons magical realms of vibrant color and natural themes.

Many of Karlson’s works abstractedly draw on the forms of moths and butterflies, such as Pupa’s Path, relying on their native symmetry to engage with the viewer. One is drawn into their flowing wings and nebulous bodies, circling around and around the abstracted portraits of the delicate creatures. They are simplistic at first glance – almost childlike – but the subtle gradations of color and careful mirroring underscore Karlson’s  capable exhibition of joy.

Even the materials which Karlson uses emphasize this innocent, earnest aesthetic. The colored pencil lines, bumpy and tactile on the rough canvas, evoke a simpler time in one’s own life. It’s a body of work that doesn’t have ulterior motives or hidden messages, and simultaneously proves great art doesn’t need them. “Petal’s Path” shows us intimate glimpses of an uncomplicated, unironic, and unserious world of soft, verdant planes of green and swirling eddies of blue and violet.

In Lieu
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