Sharon Karni’s attraction to the ocean and the ships and people that navigate them motivate her passionate painting sessions. Her remarkable use of color and texture to create artifacts on the surface of her canvas are birthed from a time- and labor-intensive process. Many of the textures are created from materials which she buries in water or sand for a minimum of a year.

So unique are her works that if you’ve seen one you can unquestionably identify another. Her blues and greens emerge as patina-like incrustations of sea-salted oxidized metals. Ships’ masts and vessel portals emerge from her otherwise abstract imagery. Some of her work even dawns barely identifiable actual material clothing of the seamen she considers. Viewers are swept to the depths of the sea with her deep blue green pigments.

The textures given by time’s erosive presence on nature beckon us to want to touch her paintings. There is a magical experience of “visual touch” that erupts when we digest Karni’s art.