Weird Sisters
Massimo De Carlo gallery is pleased to present Weird Sisters, the first exhibition in Italy by the American artist Karin Gulbran, opening on the 11th of April 2018 in our Via Ventura exhibition space.
Karin Gulbran, who is based in Los Angeles, California, began her training as a painter, developing a language grounded in investigating and conveying her everlasting interest for all things connected to the realm of the natural world. Ten years ago, the artist began translating her oneiric earthly imagery into ceramic creations.
For Weird Sisters Karin Gulbran has crafted a series of large ceramic vessels adorned with her unique dream like iconography of animals in the landscape, chasing, hunting and frolicking in the rain, woods and moonlight. Cats, rabbits, wild boar and fish inhabit the enchanted glazed surfaces of the pots.
The title of this exhibition, Weird Sisters, refers to the three figural vases also on view. These works are an evolution of her Pelican vase, emerging as a sculptural and fantastical Seahorse- Pelican. They are hybrid creatures like the Chimera or Unicorn and allude to the mythical. Whereas the large pots feature wooded scenes and earthly animals, the Weird Sisters are aquatic creatures, which can be imagined in watery terrain, represented here by cauldron shaped fishbowls.
Also featured is the Budding Branch with White Flower, a subtle pot depicting four branches in various stages of bloom. This piece quietly sets the scene, representing the landscape that the animals inhabit, like a stage before the actors emerge or trees waiting for flowers before they blossom.
Each of Karin Gulbran’s works carries the viewer into the artist’s personal expressionistic lexicon that is formed intuitively and emotionally through the creative process. As put by the artist herself: “I am inspired by relationships to animals in proximity to me, both real and imagined and sympathetic to their survival.” Weird Sisters offers a glimpse into this supernatural universe, allowing the viewer to connect to glazed and bewildered earthly powers.
The Artist
Karin Gulbran was born in Seattle, WA, in 1967. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Gulbran’s ceramic sculptures utilize gestural figuration, blending in recurring abstracted motifs inspired by nature, such as leaf and branch shapes, animals and raindrops, resulting in a distinctive painterly, signature imagery. Gulbran developed an unconventional ceramics technique that involves using high-fire glazes to achieve the painterly imagery that has become a signature aspect of her work. This fusion of expressionistic figure painting and ceramics has become the cornerstone of her artistic practice.
Karin Gulbran received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute (1996) and her MFA from University of California, Los Angeles (1999). Over the years, her work has been exhibited from the United States to Europe, in renowned art galleries and institutions. Her work is also part of the Tia Collection in Santa Fe, New Mexico.