Karl X Hauser: Fever Dream

Featured Exhibition at Transmission Gallery Oakland:

Karl X Hauser

FEVER DREAM
August 4th - September 17th
Opening Reception
Saturday, August 6th, 1-4 pm

A lot has happened since Karl X Hauser's last solo show at Transmission Gallery, a combination of catastrophic events almost impossible to have imagined back then in 2019. Aptly titled, Hauser's, Fever Dream, introduces gritty figurative sculpture created during these bewildering and chaotic few years. Horrified and horrific, stupefied, but still gamely carrying on, hopeful even, Hauser's characters and personages resonate with the complexity and range of human responses. A tactile use of common materials contributes to the immediacy and sensate experience of his work in this show while a pervading sense of dark humor elicits a jolt of recognition and connection. See the work at Transmission Gallery Oakland, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 5 pm and by appointment, August 4th through September 17th.

Karl X. Hauser, fever dream no. 5 / styrofoam, wire, string, epoxy resin / 12 x 14 x 12 inches

Press: The Irony of "Fever Dream," an Interview with Karl X Hauser

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More about Karl X. Hauser

Past Exhibitions at Transmission Gallery:
Monsters and Friends, December 6 - January 25, 2019
Failed Repression: I Tried to Make This Pleasant, April 7 - May 20, 2017

Karl x Hauser was born in Michigan City, on a small farm in northwest Indiana. He played in the dirt, drew pictures, and learned to swim in Lake Michigan. His mother, a self taught artist who invented and painted “blue roses”, encouraged him to draw as it didn’t have the messy potential of paint.

Later, he worked for the railroad as a gandy dancer (track laborer) in order to save money for art school. He attended the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis where he studied sculpture, learned to make neon signs, and was first exposed to video art. He received his MFA in video and performance art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1981.

His work has included drawing, watercolor, digital collage, and sculpture. His sculptures involve a wide range of materials including styrofoam, cardboard, wire, ceramic, found objects, etc., either used directly or as patterns for molds. Simultaneously figurative and expressionistic, his work weaves together humor and the horrific.