Title
Kara Maria: Joy Spring
Files
Exhibit Dates
March 16 - April 10, 2015
Description
The Reynolds Gallery is pleased to present the solo exhibition Joy Spring by San Francisco-based painter Kara Maria, whose work combines abstraction and representation to address subjects including the impact of human culture on the natural world, and the effect of technology on our psyches, on view from March 16 - April 10, 2015.
A public reception, for the artist is scheduled March 19, 2015 in the gallery, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m., with Artist's talk at 7:00 p.m. All events are free and open to the public.
Although the paintings are based in abstraction, Maria embeds realistic images - such as surveillance cameras, endangered animals, cellphone and fracking towers, and radio waves - into tumultuous fields of disjointed shapes and vibrant colors. The more abstract elements in depict expansion and growth, even explosion, as well as the fragmentation and folding of space. The work engages with the world we live in today with a touch of humor and playfulness, seeking to raise questions rather than to give answers.
The exhibition will also include a selection of the work made during Maria's recent residency at Recology (the San Francisco dump), where she made paintings using only materials scavenged from the trash; such as amateur paintings and digitally printed, mass-produced artwork from Ikea. Maria painted over the works with recycled acrylic paint from the Household Hazardous Waste Program. Interspersed within the paintings are detailed renderings of the living creatures that inhabit or pass through the site, including: raccoons, hawks, mice, and other animals.
Recommended Citation
University of the Pacific, "Kara Maria: Joy Spring" (2015). Reynolds Gallery Exhibits Archive. 59.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/rg-exhibits/59
Artist Information
Maria received an MFA from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been an affiliate artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts, and an artist-in residence at the de Young Museum, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Her work is in the permanent collection of the San Jose Museum of Art, the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, and the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. She has exhibited at the de Saisset Museum in Santa Clara, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Pratt Manhattan Gallery in New York, and is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco. You can learn more about her work at www.karamaria.com.