Karin Skiba
Habitat
Solo Exhibition November 2-24, 2019 Opening reception November 2, 5-7 pm http://karinskiba.com/
29 Palms Art Gallery 74055 Cottonwood Dr Twentynine Palms, CA 92277 https://29palmsartgallery.com/
Science tells us that our connections are one of the most important factors in a long healthy life. Connection to home is the subject of Los Angeles artist Karin Skiba’s solo show, Habitat, opening at 29 Palms Art Gallery on November 2.
Skiba’s past work often involved emotional and physical environments in visual form. The theme of Habitat arises from this connection. The gallery space itself represents “habitat” in a true desert way, says Skiba. She admires the adobe building built to shelter from the heat and sun in 1936. As an art gallery this home now offers relief in the form of art.
Born and raised in Detroit, Skiba says the architecture of that city evokes the comfort zone of her youth and experiences there.
“I always loved downtown Detroit,” she says, “taking the bus to Woolworth’s as a teen to buy lunch with my girlfriends. Or eating at the old diners during my art school days. The stately grand homes and churches in the downtown area are familiar and beautiful to me still and prompted me to photograph them many times.”
Those photographs in collages capture the comfort of the past and childhood memories. It connects with her ancestors who came from Europe to find a new life and draws a line to the new and revitalized future for the city. Skiba calls this an “ecofictional landscape” where photos evoke a visual reality into a painted picture plane.
The work in Habitat uses ladders and trees that reach to the future and to the roots of the past, leading to emotional environments that offer solace and safety. An escape, sometimes reminding us of places we left behind in a search for our home. Or they can be unreachable because of situations we find our society in.
Karin Skiba (Russo) attended the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit and Claremont Graduate University receiving her MFA. Her work was shown at Barnsdall Park Art Center, LACMA, Security Pacific and in galleries in LA, Oregon, Chicago and Detroit. Her includes solo exhibitions at La Verne University, Cal Poly Pomona, Joshua Tree Art Gallery as well as the Riverside Art Museum.
Habitat runs November 2-24, at 29 Palms Art Gallery with an opening reception on November 2, 5-7 pm.
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