The Search for Saattva

The subjects of Karen Knorr’s work are as geographically diverse as the artist’s own biography: Knorr was born in Germany and raised in Puerto Rico, before she ventured to Paris and settled in London. While she works in video and installation, she is perhaps best known for her photographs and digital collages.

Principal themes in her work include the stratification of class, the distribution of privilege and wealth, value systems, the symbolic role of animal representations, and issues of power at the foundation of cultural heritage.

Knorr prefers to look at the privileged rather than the disenfranchised; her subjects have included wealthy English classes and their patriarchal systems and frequented clubs. More recently, Knorr has produced a series of digitally modified interiors set in India (from which this piece derives), based on fables and injustices.