Ecstatic Tension

In Collaboration
with
Dariyah Scott
and
Wolfgang Chuck

Karny is a flamboyant creator and avid questioner of most things. He enjoys intimate conversations with strangers, closely observing different human and nonhuman ecologies, and channeling his intuition within energy exchanges. Through processes of slow meditative thought and a consideration of empathy for all surroundings, Karny explores many modes of perception, transforming experience into movement. This movement takes shape through creation, and is not limited to poetry, drawing, dance, sculpture, tattooing, and guitar playing.

Dariyah’s works often draw from her genealogical history to ground her artistic focus. It inherently draws upon energies from the living and the dead to amplify voices that have created her existence. In her performances, arises a playfulness of energy produced by the performers and the space that is housed between. Tonight’s performance is exactly this: her energy and emotion exchanged between two other performers' movements and the surrounding space.

Joshua Stokes, a welcomed newcomer to the performance, shares with us a live emotive swirl to the already authentic expression of these two incredible multifaceted artists. Rooting from the foothills of Appalachia and fanaticized into the soulful expression of the Motor City, Joshua (on stage personified as “Wolfgang Chuck”) channels these musical identities to create something old yet refreshing, familiar yet far off.

“Ecstatic Tension” brings us to a place where styles and mediums meet, and Joshua believes this is more of what the world needs in its collaborations. Places and people to be authentic, residences of generous expression, and the ability to be vulnerable and uplifted at the same time. “Ecstatic Tension'' magically makes one introspect about all these things, with 2-D art dancing, light, music, and movement, bringing your senses into the viewfinder, to feel what you need to feel, to see and hear for yourself, and to find joy and maybe a bit of melancholy in all that, together.

Karny’s new series of figurative works embody a process of meditation to metamorphosis, from a seemingly proposed container to a physical liberation. By regulating their body through breath and mindfulness, releasing a deep rooted imposed self, an absorption of the environment can take place. Specifically by observing live models and others who join Karny in an exploration of form. For Karny, the form is not limited to visual perception, instead this perception merely becomes a suggestion for understanding the body. An ecstatic improvisational dance with charcoal, chalk, and pencil takes place, reconfiguring pressure within the model - to tensions in the periphery - to his own understanding of how these feelings and movements swirl and transcend throughout a space.

Karny’s dancing, engaged by Dariyah's vocals, Josh's violin, and the audience, becomes a transmutation of this self, becoming an altered consciousness, connecting with ground, nature, unfamiliar familiar notions; an ability to be present. In Dariyah’s voice there is a call from the depth of her soul.

There is an endless supply of potential waiting to be transformed, played with, and altered in the way we carry ourselves and those around us ✴

Poster designed by Dariyah and Karny

Untitled
Chalk and charcoal on paper
November 2023
Karny

Untitled , Chalk and charcoal on paper , November 2023 , Karny

Untitled , Chalk, colored pencil and charcoal on paper , November 2023 , Karny

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