Opening: Karen Yank: Lessons in Abstraction

Karen Yank: Lessons in Abstraction
On view: September 19–October 20, 2025
Opening reception: Friday, September 19, 4:00-6:00 pm

Karen Yank sculpts with steel to channel the open happiness of New Mexican vistas in Lessons in Abstraction. An expert of outdoor installation sculptures with many publically collected works, Yank received the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2022.

Yank was deeply influenced by her mentor Agnes Martin. Yank often finds that her pieces, too, come to her during meditations and dreams, and has continued to play with rectilinear forms. Yank notes that Agnes Martin’s work was in fact based on rectangles and not lines: Yank says “She liked rectangles because they were softer and, so whenever she did grids, if you look at them really closely, they’re little rectangles inside of the squares.” The circle, however, was too expansive for Agnes Martin, and she didn’t like using the form. Yank has created a distinct new branch in her artistic lineage by frequently incorporating the circle into her work to achieve a lighter, more open surface and to balance the heavy sculptural materials she works with like steel.

Turner Carroll Gallery conceived Karen Yank’s solo exhibition after the artist’s feature in the Albuquerque Museum’s 2025 show Abstracting Nature. Yank gave an incredible lecture at the museum titled “Lessons in Abstraction” about the inspiration she draws from Agnes Martin, as well as an interview on Colores PBS which shows the incredible depth of this connection. Outdoor and indoor sculptures of various sizes will be shown at Turner Carroll Gallery during this solo exhibition.