Karim Shuquem
MFA Fine Art, 2018
Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, California

BFA Studio Art / BA Graphic Arts, 2004 CSU East Bay, Hayward, California


As a singer & lyricist as well as visual artist, Karim Shuquem is decidedly surrealist in an expressionist manner. His controlled chaos employs double entendres, complications, obfuscations and contradictions, whilst drawing pictures, both poetic and painterly, of the human condition and its systems, structures, classifications, and limits…. and the tension produced when pushing against such things.

I create installations, art pieces, music and performances that consider hierarchies, connection, existence, and absurdity. I had my first solo art exhibit in 2011 with a series of 12 automatic drawings. After showing these, I began to view them as documents of an experiential process that happened in my basement apartment in Chicago. I became interested in finding ways for the artwork to do more than just document a process.

The existential maxim “existence precedes essence” is key for me , as present-moment experience must always be considered. This can come into play in terms of a feeling of potentiality or connection to a hidden element or it can be connect and engage via connected processes, i.e. pulling prints from engraved sculptures or making paintings from leftover prints.  

It is exciting for me to be able to marry the metaphor of the imagery to the metaphor of the material. For example, a tarot deck perfectly encapsulates what I am after with my artwork. The tarot deck is made up of 78 captivating metaphorical images but it is not still. It requires a person to shuffle the deck and continually find new meanings through discovered relationships. The artwork is continually being stirred up and reconfigured, new connections are continually made, different synapses are firing.

My Cubes sculpture of 2016 was a turning point, when on a whim I decided to glue 48 drawings on panels onto eight 6-inch wooden cubes. I found that stacking the blocks inherently held the action of play. Whenever it is shown, I ask the preparator to stack them as they wish. Even after it has been arranged and is on view for display, I have been told that viewers desire to lift the blocks to be able to see all six sides and also see the blocks in different formations. This desire for ‘something else’ is very important to me. I want the charge of potential to be inherent in everything I do.

The desire to retain a ‘charge of potential’ could make certain works perhaps appear ‘unfinished,’ but I’d say that comes with the territory. One of my pieces in particular is meant to be continually worked on and always remain unresolved. It is made up of over 100 carved and enameled empty wooden boxes that are stacked differently with each showing. The carvings depict structural barriers and conveyances as well as the actors of a poetic drama. New carvings are continually added and the assemblage changes shape with each showing as the arrangement is always different. It is meant to embody Deleuze’s becoming: we are never finished becoming who we are.

My imagery tends to be symbolic and expressionistic. I do not draw, paint, or carve specific people usually, but rather players in some sort of poetic drama. I’ve often pulled reference imagery from manuals or instructional diagrams. I see the individuals as actors performing their respective tasks. Hands and feet can also function as stand-ins for the human. I try to achieve the feeling of a dream, something that has a strong feeling of meaning, but the meaning is more like a hint rather than a shout.

I’m interested in achieving the effect of a feeling – that there is something else that is not seen, some meaning on the tip of your tongue or the back of your mind, some other character behind the wall perhaps, I’ve often depicted structural barriers or conveyances; portals, prisons, stairs, walls, cages, hallways. Bodies traverse these pathways, but the structures themselves are analog to the body and the inherent limitations of our skin, our identities, and all the holes, loopholes, stretchiness, and flexibility that counteracts our edges and limitations.

My interest is in an attached sense of what is on the other side of that wall or the other end of the tunnel. I’ve always been preoccupied with the feeling of searching, of reaching, or of trying to pass through a barrier into some unknown other place, whether that’s physical, spiritual, or existential.