NEW/NOW: Karl Lund

Destructive Thoughts Flashed Through His Brain
Karl Lund, Destructive Thoughts Flashed Through His Brain, 2011, Acrylic paint and spray paint on canvas, 9 x 12 in., Private Collection
He Didn’t Care that He Had Broken the Time Portal, Soon He Would Have His Revenge!
Karl Lund, He Didn’t Care that He Had Broken the Time Portal, Soon He Would Have His Revenge!, 2011, Acrylic paint on acid-free paper, 15 1/4 x 22 in., Private Collection
He Was Mad and Everything and Everyone Would Suffer For It
Karl Lund, He Was Mad and Everything and Everyone Would Suffer For It, 2013, Acrylic paint and spray paint on masonite, 24 x 35 1/2 in.,
His Lasers were Set to Liquefy
Karl Lund, His Lasers were Set to Liquefy, 2012, Acrylic paint and ink on acid-free paper, 22 3/8 x 42 in., Private Collection
In His Rage He Fired All Three Disintegration Rays at Once!
Karl Lund, In His Rage He Fired All Three Disintegration Rays at Once!, 2011, Acrylic Paint, spray paint, paint marker,, 19 x 25 in.,
I’ve Grown Tired of playing your Silly Stupid Games
Karl Lund, I’ve Grown Tired of playing your Silly Stupid Games, 2011, Acrylic paint on acid-free paper, 9 x 11 1/2 in., The Kilburn Collection
Tar Del Mar and the Flying Brains of the Pleistocene Epoch
Karl Lund, Tar Del Mar and the Flying Brains of the Pleistocene Epoch, 2014, Acrylic paint, spray paint and paint marker, 48 x 72 in.,

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

NEW/NOW: Karl Lund

Mary & George W. Cheney, Jr. Gallery

Lund’s exhibition, Angry Robots Liquefied My Brain, features narrative paintings that depict a world where robots fight giant squids and exterminate countless enemies with powerful laser beams.

Lund’s early career as a stop-motion animator often involved the process of creating unique characters for animated short films. Character design is still a passion that has carried over into his paintings. Each painting features an angry robot involved in a battle. In some works, the viewer can see the enemy they are fighting while in others the action takes place beyond the picture plane and one is left to imagine the charred remains of whatever the robot has annihilated. Lund’s earliest influences for his drawings and animations were comics, science fiction, and fantasy books of the 1970s. It is easy to recognize these influences as well as aspects of animation in his work. These brightly colored, action-packed paintings are charged with energy and appear to almost jump off the page.

Early on, Lund was encouraged to create. His mother, also an artist, would let him into her home studio where he would draw and paint as well as fashion works out of cardboard and random odds and ends. ”Most of my work originates out of a spark of an idea that I then roll over in my mind. Once I sketch it on paper or my iPad, it starts to grow and develop,” Lund explains. ”My goal is to tell intriguing stories that are visually and thematically dynamic. I want to capture worlds and events that currently only exist in theory or within the possibility of science fiction.”