VOYAGE AUSTIN - MEET KAREN MANESS

Voyage Austin
JULY 5, 2022

Excerpts: Here is the link to the article for further reading.

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Karen Maness.

Hi Karen, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I am a visual artist, educator, designer, author, and curator with thirty years of painting and fabrication experience in the entertainment industry.

As a San Diego art student child, I was profoundly affected by the L.A. freeway muralists of the 1970s and 1980s and the immersive-painted environments of Disneyland. The Mexican murals in Balboa Park and Chicano Park’s vibrant cacophony of paintings on the 5 freeway felt like an invitation to create with old friends. At age ten, I followed my stage manager mother into the Theatre, joining rehearsals, backstage life, and apprenticing scenic designers. I loved the collaborative nature of the art form and the understanding that the teams rose or fell together. The nuance, complexity, and possibility of the Theatre machine fascinated me, as did the act of design and performance, where concepts became real and emotional journeys were made visible to audiences. By 18, I understood large-scale artwork was my calling. I worked and trained as a scenic artist for the themed entertainment and concert world while earning my B.A. in fine art, art history, and scenic design at Whittier College. In 1994, I joined the Tony Award-Winning South Coast Repertory staff, working with the nation’s top designers and mentor, charge scenic artist, Mary Heilman.

I arrived in Austin in 1999 to develop my studio art practice and take on the charge scenic artist position at The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Performing Arts. Twenty-three years and infinite adventures later, I’ve built a beautiful family, life, and private studio practice in East Austin. I create studio art, public art, exhibitions, and corporate and private commissions, with paintings in collections worldwide. I am also an Associate Director of the Texas Performing Arts Fabrication Studios and Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Texas at Austin. At the Texas Performing Arts Fabrication Studios, I work with interdisciplinary students and extraordinary colleagues in fabrication practices for live performances, film, television, themed attractions, and art installations. We leverage traditional fabrication knowledge with cutting-edge technologies to develop and support the next generation of great artists. Unleashing an individual’s potential drives my work as an educator. I have dedicated myself to preserving and teaching the language of painting as a key to visual storytelling for both digital and analog artists. For the past ten years, I have researched, preserved, and taught the art and history of Hollywood motion picture scenic art, publishing The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop (Regan Arts, 2016) with professor Richard M. Isackes and curating exhibitions of motion picture backdrops.

In 2017, through the generous donations of J.C. Backings and the Art Directors Guild Archives Backdrop Recovery Project, the University of Texas at Austin became the home of the world’s largest educational collection of motion picture backdrops. Texas Performing Arts Hollywood Backdrop Collection of 68 motion picture backdrops from Hollywood’s cinematic history features original works from The Sound of Music (1962, 20th Century Fox), Ben Hur (1953, MGM), and the iconic Mount Rushmore painting from Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (MGM, 1951). In 2022, I had the honor of co-curating the world premiere museum exhibition, Art of the Hollywood Backdrop: Cinema’s Creative Legacy, at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, with production design collaborator Thomas A. Walsh. The exhibition celebrates the uncredited scenic artists who shaped cinematic history, bringing their secretive artwork and story to the public for the first time and receiving global press and critical acclaim. — featuring backdrops from collections of Texas Performing Arts and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, April 2022 – January 2023.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The greatest obstacle I faced was understanding that range is a strength. Once I abandoned the perception that I must be only one thing, my career and opportunities blossomed. I am an artist, producer, educator, mentor, author, curator, designer, founder, creative director, historian, public speaker, and scenic artist.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Painting is how I understand and unpack my lived experience. Through expansive landscapes and intimate portraits, I investigate memory, nature, home, and time. My theatre practice has had a profound, palpable influence on my studio art. I am captivated by creating works for viewers to live and play out their own stories. Expressionistic landscapes invite viewers into the liminal borderless space between their current position and the infinite horizon. Liminal spaces feel activated, resonating with those who have preceded us and filled with questions about how we will choose to exist in our lifetime. My paintings are invitations to rest the mind, dream, play, and build the lives viewers wish to see. I enjoy creating works to shape the space and feel of collectors’ homes, becoming part of a family’s history, memories, and world experiences.

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