VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Galveston Arts Center is pleased to present an exhibition of recent work by Houston-based artist Karin Broker. The exhibition will feature drawings, prints and sculptures and will open during the April 21 ArtWalk. It will remain on view through May 27, 2012. Curator Clint Willour will lead a gallery talk with the artist beginning at 6:30 pm during ArtWalk. The event is free and open to the public.

The title, Wired, Nailed, Drawn and Printed, reflects the variety of media and methods employed by the artist. Vintage rhinestone jewelry is wired to found objects, or woven into three-dimensional shapes while other objects and pieces of flattened tin are nailed to shaped panels like collaged retablos. Broker creates large-scale drawings with Conté crayon on Formica panels depicting lush bouquets of roses, peonies and other flowers, rendered meticulously in black and white, evocative of 16th century Dutch still life paintings. The floral imagery is echoed in her prints as well, including photogravures and linocuts, in what has been called an exuberantly baroque style.

The artist writes, “My work has visually dealt with bad boyfriends, quirky family problems, death, and that ever-marching ticking of time called aging. I just like to make things. These ‘things’ are my personal and quiet conversations with melancholia…. The final objects, I hope, revel in optimism, beauty, and the quirkiness, silliness, and seriousness of all of the above.” The exhibition will include work in a variety of media, in scale ranging from intimate to epic, and completed during the past few years.

Broker was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Houston in 1980 to join the faculty at Rice University where she served as chair of the Department of Visual Arts and continues to teach printmaking and drawing. She has degrees from the University of Iowa and University of  Wisconsin and studied printmaking at Atelier 17 in Paris. Her work was featured in a two person exhibition, Drawing on Sculpture, with Stephen Daly at the Galveston Arts Center in 1992. She was the Texas Artist of the Year in 1994. Her work has been shown extensively in the US, as well as in China, Germany, Holland, Russia, France, Brazil, Australia and London and is included in numerous public and private collections worldwide.

Galveston Arts Center is operating in a temporary downtown location on the corner of Market and 25th Streets. The exhibition gallery and selections from GAC’s retail gallery, ArtWorks, are open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, from 11 am to 5 pm, and Sunday from noon to 5 pm. Admission is free at all times. A flyer listing all ArtWalk participants with times and locations can be downloaded at www.contemporaryartgalveston.org.

Images:

Pictured Above:
Karin Broker
fat girl with nest, 2010
Conte and Prismacolor on rag paper
78 1/2 x 50 inches
Courtesy the artist and McClain Gallery, Houston

Pictured Below:
Karin Broker
Busy Boys, 2006
Mixed media
11 1/4 x 7 x 2 3/4 inches
Courtesy the artist and McClain Gallery, Houston

Karin Broker
heart on hold, 2011
Wired heart hanging from thing black stick and placed in rectangular box
11 3/4 x 11 3/4 x 4 3/5 inches
Courtesy the artist and McClain Gallery, Houston