Karoline Schleh

My drawings, paintings, and prints are rendered with a distinct atmospheric quality and longhand backwards script. My compositions are inspired by contemplation of handwriting, landscape, animal & human form, songs, and the stories we choose to tell.

Backwards Script

My reversed handwriting developed from my training as a printmaker initially out of necessity. I began writing backwards onto my copper etching plates in order for the words to print forwards in the final print. Eventually, the handwriting reversals began to stand on their own in my drawings and paintings as gestural marks.

Smoke Drawings

Fumage is a technique of drawing with smoke. I layer the natural mark of the flame with my backward script, in pencil or other media, to create a reflective space and depth in my compositions. I have worked with fumage techniques for over 25 years, and while it is a tricky medium to work with, the subtleties cannot be achieved any other way.

Collaborations with Bradley Sabin

Bradley Sabin & Karoline Schleh are recognized for their independent artistic endeavors as well as their collaborative installations such as that on view. Under Sabin’s nurturing touch, the weight of clay is transformed into ethereal organic forms while Schleh’s ghostly “backwards” script lends an atmospheric quality to the work they create together.

Elizabeth Weinstein, “The Dandelion: A Symbol of Resistance” group exhibition, Long Vue Gardens, 2023