NEW YORK CITY.- Several paintings in Karen Sperling's Magical Mystical Tours Series are on display in a group show entitled "Damez" at Monkdogz Gallery, 547 West 27th Street , 5th floor, between 10th & 11th Aves in the Chelsea section of New York City . The show, which runs through June 2, 2007, marks the debut of Karen Sperling's abstracts in a New York gallery.

"Since my childhood in New York , I've had a recurring dream in which the expansive highways leading to gigantic bridges turn into roller coasters as I travel over them," says Karen. "The Magical Mystical Tour series stems from this idea of highways turning into roller coasters."

The acrylic, charcoal and glitter canvases have some recognizable elements like roller coasters and highways, like signposts in a strange world where you also see things that the artist may or may not have put there, based on your own ideas and perceptions.

"While as the artist I'm the tour guide, presenting these little journeys, the viewer really determines the ride's meaning to him or her--the tours will mean different things to different people, like Rorschach ink blots. As the tour guide, my hope is that viewers will get that feeling I get when I stand in front of a painting in a museum that 'sends me,' like the work of the Abstract Expressionists, Futurists and Surrealists--that feeling that you're going both inside the painting and inside yourself," Karen says.

"Though the first dictionary definition of mystic relates to religious experience, it's the last several entries I intend for my Magical Mystical Tour series: inspiring a sense of mystery and wonder; mysterious, strange; enigmatic, obscure."

Between the time she oil painted in the fourth grade in New York and her current series of abstract paintings, Karen Sperling pursued a successful career as a journalist, entrepreneur, publisher and author.

“I always dabbled with drawing and painting, mostly doodling on sheets of paper while negotiating on the phone,” says Karen. “My abstracts are the culmination of years of studying linear relationships through doodles.”