Caroline Honas
Ephemera II
Oil on Canvas
14”x18”x1.5”
2023
JULY 4 - 25, 2024 | Snap Space GALLERY
“Anamnesis in Green”
Anamnesis; the remembering of things from a supposed previous existence.
Transient; not lasting, enduring, or permanent.
Ephemera; things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time.
Growth is the triumph of life and the benefit of witnessing death. “Anamnesis in Green” is series of abstracted botanical portraiture meditating on resilience through inevitable change.
The flora depicted in this exhibition are derived from ecosystems found around the stat in the regions known as the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the California coast, the semi-arid desert of Utah, and primarily, the Great Plains of the midwest. Collage-like in composition, these paintings condense thousands of miles and hundreds of days into singular visual moments. Irrational light, vibrant color, and unpredictable shapes become characters, acting out memories of growth and decay. These ‘memories’ are somewhat unreliably narrated, walking the line between naturalism and idealism (nostalgia), recalling recognizable vegetation while fabricating new realities (germination).
Created in iteration, each set of “sister paintings” in this body are intended to offer direct visual parallels and develop a language of pattern recognition (relation, legacy, reincarnation). These paintings celebrate the serendipitous, cyclical, and brief moments of growth, immortalized on canvas.
Caroline Honas is an artist from the prairie currently residing in Kansas City, Kansas. Honas graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2022 with a BFA in painting, minoring in social practice. Interested in the intersection between art and science, her practice explores the concept of interdependence by drawing parallels between ecological– specifically, botanical– phenomena and the human experience. All flora that she depicts within her painting practice are based on specimens encountered while existing and working within the land. Honas has shown work at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, H&R Block Artspace, Mark Arts Center, and the Kansas City Artist Coalition, among others. She is a 2024-2026 studio resident at the Charlotte Street Foundation.