"My language is vibrant color and line...

Color makes my heart sing.
Painting is about color. Pure pigment, intensity, light

I want to do paintings that give the same feeling to the viewer as a gaze upon an open landscape: to rest, to open the mind and the senses, to see, to feel/to fuel one's own life flow." Karin Soika

Karin Ulrike Soika was born in Munich, Germany, in 1966. She studied art in Munich, at the Malschule am Glockenbach, and completed her studies at the Art Students League, New York City.

Being an artist led her to ask many questions such as what is reality, and to what extent is "what we see" shaped by our cultural backgrounds? Taking the relativity of our perception of "truth" as a starting point, she tries to identify cultural assumptions in order to go beyond them. Living abroad and immersing herself deeply in foreign cultures and speaking their languages has helped her achieve this goal.

As a result of spending half her life far from her native home, Soika has become very aware of her own roots. Even though she prefers to express herself through abstract expressionism, she frequently is amazed when people who see her work spontaneously associate it with Germany.


"Abstract painting is the human equivalent to open nature. It is open, leaving the viewer space, non-suggestion.
Yes, painting is very old-fashioned nowadays. It is almost obsolete. Subversive, maybe?

But above all: I cannot help it. It is my heart's blood." Karin Soika

I believe that in difficult times like ours it is of importance to see things "clearly". The fact that we inescapably see the world through the sunglasses of our own culture makes our reality and concept of "truth" amorphous, a fact being enforced even more by globalization. Our only chance is to learn to really see things and to take them for what they are instead of projecting our own cultural perceptions onto them.
That something is "foreign" to us, does not automatically make it "bad" or "wrong". Sometimes it is even enriching to follow foreign ways of dealing with the world, as foreign cultures, just as our own, follow an inner logic and often offer surprising solutions." Karin Soika

Soika has shown her work in numerous exhibitions worldwide. Currently she lives and works in Munich, Germany, and New York City.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

• 1994 Art Students League, New York City:
  Show curated by Rudolf Baranik
  Several Class Exhibitions
  Christmas Show ASL, New York City
• 1995 Class Exhibition William Scharf
  "Abstract Art" Universidad Central del Este, in co-operation with M. Abulquerque
• 1997 "Ink Drawings" Fior di Loto Gallery, JD, SPM
  "Letter to my Lover" Restaurant Shanti, Santo Domingo
• 2001 "New Paintings" at IMIXS GmbH, Munich, Germany
  "Subject Matters", Phoenix Gallery, Soho, New York City
  "Eat Art 4", A.I.R. Gallery, Soho, New York City
  "ASL Christmas Show" , New York City
  "The September 11 Photo Project", Wooster Street Gallery, New York City
• 2002 "Leaps and Bounds", Phoenix Gallery, Soho, New York City
  "Eat Art 5", HEREArt Gallery, Soho, New York City
  "Drawings" ASL, New York City, curated by Eric Alberts
  "Reactions", Exit Art, Soho, New York City; Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
  "The September 11 Photo Project", Women In Military Service For America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, Washington D.C.; The Woolworth Building, Sacramento, CA; Armory Northwest, Pasadena, CA; The Harold Washington Library Center, Chicago, IL; Detroit Public Library, Detroit, MI; Underground Atlanta, Atlanta, GA.

ADDITIONAL WORK:
www.soika.com