Emerging Bay Area Artists
Francesca Enriquez + Kara Maria
June 16–July 28, 2001
BABILONIA 1808 presents an exhibition of emerging Bay Area artists,
Francesca Enriquez and Kara Maria, beginning June 16th with
an opening reception from 7–9 pm. There will be an artists talk on
June 23, at 2 pm.
Left: Francesca Enriquez, World of Interiors, 2001, oil on magazine,
8.5" x 11"
Right: Kara Maria, It's possible that this whole thing is about orgasms,
but I don't think so.(red), 2001, acrylic on wood, 24" x 24"
Francesca Enriquez applies heavy oil paint directly onto torn pages of a home interior magazine in an almost paint by numbers fashion. Art critic Patrick Flores notes in Asian Art News, “Enriquez critiques the ways in which mass media commodifies ‘interiors’ and markets its attendant bourgeois lifestyle as the ideal way to take stock of one’s life. In The World of Interiors she reclaims the interior trapped in the gloss of a magazine by painting every page with thick icing-like pigment in an almost neurotic and covetous attempt at repossessing the home.” Along with this series of works on paper, Enriquez presents an ephemeral painting made almost purely of lard. Using lard to represent oil as the base of both painting and cooking, the artist addresses both painting itself and the interior homescape, traditionally the domain of women. Enriquez was born in Manila, Philippines in 1962, attended the University of the Philippines, Diliman and received her masters degree in Fine Art at The Norwich School of Art and Design, England. She is represented by Washington Square Gallery in San Francisco and Finale Art File in Manila.
Kara Maria’s brightly colored, graphic abstract paintings on wood panel reveal that the patterns found in nature are not far from the patterns produced by culture. While studying her recent photos of a live television screen, Maria discovered that the wood grain of the panels she was painting on was uncannily similar to the distorted representation of the TV image captured in the photos. “What interests me right now is how our culture is based on continual progression, which also causes continual destruction . . . Just being here [indicating her studio’s location at the Marin Headlands, overlooking the former Nike missile base] is symbolic of the duality between good and evil, construction and destruction.” Kara Maria was born in Binghamton, New York in 1968 and attended UC Berkeley for both her undergraduate and masters degrees in Art Practice. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Catharine Clark Gallery and AOV both in San Francisco.
Both artists express elements of the Babilonia Wilner Foundation’s vision which includes the restoration of healthy environments. The foundation’s new Berkeley headquarters and artspace occupy an 1878 historical landmark which has been restored with the aid of local architects Dan Smith and Bob Theis who employ re-used and recycled building materials in their ecological design and methods.