Kara Maria made her first lithograph at Shark’s Ink. in August 2004. “No Heroes” is a vibrant florescent colored lithograph with abstract patterns reminiscent of comic book graphics, intertwined with camouflaged silhouettes of birds and airplanes. Kara Maria describes her work as “reflecting my anxiety about the products and pollution of our synthetic culture as it is spread through the media, the military and other sources of corporate sponsored global homogenization. Cheerfully apocalyptic, the work is intended to simultaneously attract and repel, blending beauty and toxicity, as in the supersaturated colors of a smoggy sunset.”
In 2010 Kara Maria worked with Bud Shark on a series of monoprints at the studio in Holualoa, HI. Mylar stencils, hand cut by the artist, were inked in various colors, then placed and printed on sheets of Thai mulberry paper. They were sent through the press multiple times to build up layers of transparent and opaque colors. The “ghosts” of remaining ink from previous printings were often used to build up subtle tones and textures. The series is titled “Hawaiian Punch”.
Maria returned to Shark’s Ink. in 2022 to make her most recent lithograph “At Sight of Sun (lark bunting)”.
Kara received her BA and MFA from the University of California’s Berkeley Department of Art Practice. She has exhibited her work in solo shows at Miller/Block Gallery, Boston, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco and Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France. She was been a recipient of a residency at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, California and a grant from The Art Council, San Francisco.
Her work is included in the collections of the Babilonia Wilner Foundation, Berkeley, CA, Benziger Imagery Estate Winery, Glen Ellen, CA, De Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, di Rosa Preserve, Napa, CA, King County Public Art Collection, Seattle, WA and the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV.
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