Karen Gubitz
Urban (2019)
woven watercolor paper and pastel
24 x 24 x 6 in. | $2,500
I select, I plan, I form, I build, I fashion, I arrange, I assemble, I make, I create.
As a fiber sculptor, first and foremost, I am a materialist. I explore the flexibility of material to extract its highest resiliency, its potential for dimensionality, and its surface possibilities.
My new work explores paper for its flexibility as a structural material and conceptually looks to the diversity of community to build a stronger and safer place to live. “Urban” weaves heavy watercolor paper with pastels to create an urban landscape, one in which a community lives without experiencing nature. This is an environment in which I live but one from which I escape often so that I might bring the natural environment into my life.
As the noted fiber artist and educator Warren Seelig wrote, “When you experience a place, it is the materiality that you engage with, and it is the expressiveness of that materiality that makes the place memorable and rich.”
My hope is that my work reflects this experience.
© Karen Gubitz