Karin Gulbran

Karin Gulbran was born in Seattle, WA, in 1967. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.


Karin Gulbran is a prominent figure in California's avant-garde craft movement, known for her contribution to the field of ceramic sculpture. Over the course of 20 years, Gulbran has pioneered a new generation of artists characterised by their deliberately simple and classical forms decorated with pictorial narratives. Her work utilises gestural figuration, blending in recurring abstracted motifs inspired by nature, resulting in a distinctive visual language. Gulbran's artistic repertoire includes various elements, such as leaf and branch shapes, animals, and raindrops, showcasing her remarkable ability to create and convey her own symbolic language. The animal motif holds a profound significance in Gulbran's work. Her clay sculptures and painted vessels exude empathy as if the creatures themselves were nurtured into existence, forming an extended family that the artist revisits periodically. Gulbran's current body of work encompasses several ongoing series, including the Animal Pots and Fishbowls, the Sculptural Bird Vases, and her most recent venture, the Obscure Mirrors series, which seamlessly combines glass with ceramics. In this latter series, a monochrome coloured glass is encased within a glazed ceramic landscape adorned with small creatures, rocks, and flowers. These wall-hanging works come to life as daylight filters through the glass, creating subtle shifts in colour.


Gulbran’s work is in the permanent collection of the TIA Collection, Santa Fe and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Karin Gulbran160 Qd8b NG

Biography

Solo exhibitions
Year
Country, Exhibition Name, Location
2022
D, Obscure Mirrors & Totemic Lamps, Pierre Marie Giraud, Bruxelles, Belgium
2021
UK, Somnambulist, MASSIMODECARLO, London
2018
I, Weird Sisters, Massimo De Carlo, Milano
B, Birds, Pierre Marie Giraud, Brussels
2016
B, The Woods, Pierre Marie Giraud, Brussels
2015
USA, Splendor in the Grass, China Art Objects Galleries, Los Angeles
2014
USA, Karin Gulbran, White Room Show, White Columns, New York
Group exhibitions
Year
Country, Exhibition Name, Location
2023
USA, Wishing Well, Parker Gallery, Los Angeles
USA, Slip Tease, Kasmin, New York
USA, South Willard, Gordon Robichaux, New York
2022
USA, The Earth Laughs, Ellen Browning Building, Portland
2021
UK, Cracked, Tristan Hoare, London
USA, These lacustrine homes Curated by Mai-Thu Perret, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
2020
USA, Sculpture from a Distance (Part III), Parker Gallery, Los Angeles
2018
USA, Vision Valley: The Glendale Biennial, Brand Library & Art Center, Glendale
2017
USA, Behold Man, China Art Objects Galleries, Los Angeles
USA, The Brightsiders Curated by Adam Miller, Verge Center for the Arts, Sacramento
2016
USA, SexPot Curated by Monique van Genderen and Amy Gallaccio, Visual Arts Gallery, Structural and Materials Enginerrin (SME) Building, San Diego
2015
USA, Sweet Sixteen, China Art Object Galleries, Los Angeles
USA, Tiger Tiger, Salon 94, New York
USA, The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up: Cobra and its Legacy, Blum and Poe, Los Angeles
2014
USA, Visible Soul, Van Dernoot Gallery, Lesley University, Cambridge
USA, Another Cats Show, 365 Mission, Los Angeles
2013
USA, Why is Everything the Same?, Works from the collection of Anne Collier and Matthew Higgs, Shoot the Lobster, New York
USA, The Cat Show Curated by Rhonda Lieberman, White Columns, New York
USA, Wonder Valley Way Station - High Desert Test Sites project by Corrina Peipon and Lucy Raven, The Palms, Wonder Valley
USA, Pet Shapes, China Art Objects, Los Angeles
2012
USA, Eye Bowls Shop exhibit of ceramics, South Willard Store, Los Angeles
1999
USA, MFA Thesis Show, UCLA Wight Art Gallery, Los Angeles
USA, Bill Adams, Karin Gulbran, Joey Kotting, Jessica Fredericks gallery, New York
1998
USA, Square Pegs, Ron Breeden Gallery, Orange
USA, Ordinary Magic, 9251/2 Tularosa, Silverlake

Bibliography

Year
Author, Publication Title, Date
2015
Wagley, Catherine, LA Weekly, December
Horst, Aaron, CARLA, November 18
1998
Curtis, Cathy, LA Times, March 10
Schoenkopf, Rebecca, OC Weekly, March 6

Public collections

Country
Location
United States of America
TIA Collection, Santa Fe

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