OPENING EVENT: Wednesday 24th March, 5.30-7.30pm

Karen Rubado deploys her loom, to do, to undo, and to make-do, both materially and to trouble and loosen our attachments to and associations with things. A strong element that runs throughout these works is that they are unresolved, and by being situated between being done and undone, woven and unwoven there is a sense that we are part of a fleeting moment in the fabric of time. This particular and fragile poise, between realized form and abject collapse, seems timely in a world that is equally poised. They are decidedly undecided and precarious.
(excerpt from exhibition publication with writing by Julia Teale, 2021)

Karen Rubado lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. She completed her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland in 2017. Karen is interested in the aggregation and transformation of found materials through hand-making. Her enthusiasm lies in the connections between intention and action, the real and imagined, and the imperfection that often characterises the handmade. Inspired by techniques of extemporising within a structure, her weaving practice encourages the unexpected and allows for spontaneity as a catalyst for discovery. She sees this as a subtle form of opposition to the authorial powers of tradition and the expectations emanating from both craft and contemporary art conventions.

 

Karen was recently commissioned to produce a work for Te Tuhi and was featured as an emerging artist for “Projects” curated by Gabriela Salgado and Francis McWhannell in the 2018 Auckland Art Fair. Recent exhibitions include under intense scrutiny, Te Tuhi (2019-2020), a sunny disposition, The 28th Annual Wallace Art Awards 2019, Wallace Arts Trust, and such a lightweight, play_station, Wellington (2019).

A small catalogue publication accompanies this exhibition. Please enquire.