FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 2026
Dressed in Sound and Dance: Karen Mosbacher’s new solo exhibition makes visible the unseen forces of music and movement
(Left): Etudes: No. 1 in C Major, 2024, Acrylic, Charcoal, and Graphite on Canvas, 38″ x 48″ x 2″, (Right): Tonight’s Designer Dress, 2024 Acrylic and Graphite on Canvas, 40″ x 20″
Cañon City, CO – Medora Gallery presents Dressed in Sound and Dance, a new solo exhibition by artist Karen Mosbacher exploring the nature of music and movement. The exhibition is curated by George Sanchez and on view May 1 – 30, 2026, with an opening reception on Friday, May 1st, at 4:30 pm.
Dressed in Sound and Dance features 29 paintings drawn across two of Mosbacher’s bodies of work. The first is her practice translating music, memory and emotional resonance into large-scale visual forms influenced by chromesthesia. These paintings trace movement and musical compositions that render the invisible into colorful, abstract explorations. The second is her practice exploring the power of women through the visual motif of the dress. These paintings abstract dresses designed by Rosemarie Umetsu, who designs garments for opera singers, performance musicians, and galas at Lincoln Center in the United States.
Together, these bodies of work converge to materialize the otherwise intangible, where sound becomes color, movement becomes form, and the symbolic language of the dress embodies the presence, agency, and resonance of the human figure.
Exhibition Details
Dressed in Sound and Dance
On View: May 1 – 30, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, May 1st, 4:30 pm
Medora Gallery
415 Main St.
Cañon City, CO 81212
About Karen Mosbacher
Karen Mosbacher is an interdisciplinary artist whose work integrates painting, photography, installation, sculpture, and collaborative performance. Influenced by synesthetic perception, she approaches sound and emotional states as chromatic structures, translating music, memory, and affect into visual form. This perceptual framework shapes the tonal and emotional architecture of her work across media.
Her practice is anchored in two major bodies of work. SŌ SÓ MĒ: The Science of the Sound of Music and Emotions present large-scale chromesthetic paintings that explore the physics and felt experience of sound through expansive compositions reaching up to 6’ x 7’. These works investigate how music inhabits the body and how emotion can be rendered structurally in color and form.
From 2020–2024, Mosbacher developed Collateral BEAUTY, a four-year body of work that marked a significant expansion of her practice into interactive installation, photography, and sculptural intervention. Examining silence, endurance, and embodied sovereignty, this series deepened her interdisciplinary integration and laid the conceptual groundwork for her current work.
The Work of Resilience: Living Systems extends that trajectory. Rooted in painting and expanded through altered photography, material intervention, installation, and collaboration with dancers, this body of work examines resilience as interdependence — considering how individuals, communities, and natural systems sustain one another through connection, care, and creative presence.
Mosbacher’s paintings translating the compositions of Dr. Ofer Ben-Amots are archived in The National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. She was part of a Heartland Emmy®–winning team for the short documentary essay I Paint Music, serving as writer, art director, on-screen artist, and curator of its musical score, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for the script of Collateral BEAUTY: No More Silence. She is represented by JRB Art at The Elms in Oklahoma City and Platte Collections in Colorado Springs, with exhibitions in Europe, London, and across the United States. She is actively seeking gallery representation and commissioned projects.
Mosbacher lives and works in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Website: https://karenmosbacher.com
Instagram: @karenmosbacher