Karen Silvestro’s symbolic art explores human relationships

Dee Rhodes, Bord

The storage shelf in Summerville artist Karen Silvestro’s studio looks like a work of art.
Taking up most of a wall, it is topped with a dazzling assortment that includes puppets, books, and rubber chickens. The cubbies inside contain items like photographs, sketches and swaths of fabric, and are neatly labeled, “Masks and Marionettes,” “Laundry on the Line,” and “Gene Pool.” This shelf is where Silvestro, a symbolist and surrealist painter, collects and organizes ideas for projects. But her primary source of inspiration cannot be stored there.

“My work is inspired by looking at people,” Silvestro said, “and hearing about their situations.” Her work translates these experiences into compelling images, creating an effect that is simultaneously familiar and surreal. Her painting Carry On, for instance, features a young woman literally carrying herself through a maze infiltrated by crash dummies. Although the image is startling, it is effective. As Silvestro explains, “It’s about old boyfriends, but it really applies to our whole lives. We have to have the stamina to get through and move to the next phase.”

Silvestro’s mastery of symbols may emerge from her talent for illustration, which she studied at New England College under famed children’s book author-illustrator Tomie dePaola. Silvestro continued her education at Pratt Institute. Following graduation, she worked a number of graphics-centered jobs, including painting designs for souvenirs and toys, drafting technical courtroom drawings for a construction company and creating oped pen and ink illustrations. The latter position prompted Silvestro to “develop different ways of thinking symbolically to reach the masses.” One example of this work is Turnstile, which depicts a herd of cows inching through Grand Central Station. It was inspired by her experience in New York.

Silvestro’s current line of work is owed partly to her son, Tyler, who gave her a canvas for Christmas one year after the two noticed it in an art shop. “I had this blank canvas, and I could do what I wanted to do,” Silvestro said. She filled it with an image of her husband, Frank, sporting a birdcage like a hat. The painting, Crossroads, is now the centerpiece of her living room.

Since that time, Silvestro has produced many other surrealistic and symbolic pieces, delightful in form and insightful in function. Such is her Paperdoll collection, which explores the complexities of romantic relationships. Paintings include Pride Fighters, in which a beautiful woman and a peacock of equal presence stand eye to eye, suggesting a sense of spousal competition. Chicks Messin’ with My Head features a man’s disembodied head strung like a marionette and hanging from a woman’s hands. Attached to the neck are a few eggs, out of which fluffy yellow chicks have hatched and are hopping away. The image captures the story of a gentleman who remains tethered to his partner as he chases attractive young women who inevitably “fly the coop.”

Marionettes are important elements in many of Silvestro’s works, including Closed, which depicts a shrouded Middle Eastern figure shrinking into herself. (The companion piece, Open, forgoes featuring a marionette in favor of a nearly naked Barbie doll, poised on a stage and flaunting the sins of the West.)

Often, Silvestro uses marionettes to convey the human tendency of denying accountability. She points to the expression “it was out of my hands,” which her puppet imagery makes literal.

Having explored romantic relationships in Paperdoll, Silvestro is currently working on a new collection about family dynamics.

As with her other works, viewers will be sure to recognize something of themselves in her pieces—as well as something about the human experience.

Karen Silvestro
www.karensilvestro.com