March 8 - April 11
Reception Saturday, March 8 at 7 p.m.
The most unlikely pairing of visual elements, culled from home décor, fashion, old reference manuals, and action painting forms the visual vocabulary of Baltimore based painter Cara Ober. These works act as an entry point into the artist's unconscious; the connections between disparate images create a visual poetry, full of meanderings and musings, paired with suggestion and associations. Ober's method for constructing meaning is of her generation; she catalogues, documents, and pieces together fragments into internal maps, which document a moving through time.
"You can't understand beauty without loss. And I can't take either of these ideas seriously without an undertone of humor or irony. In every solemn occasion, there is always a subtext of anxiety or mischief, a story that is hidden. In my paintings, the most serious and silly elements combine and interact on the canvas, unfolding a narrative that is striking in contradiction, absurd in paradoxical blather, and authentic in poignant longing. I don't desire to depict these ideas, rather to reenact them on the canvas, through an odd balance of extremes." writes Ober.
Ober's canvases, rich in layers of ideas worked, rethought, reworked and painted with an exuberant and excited hand, is akin to a late night conversation shared over numerous cups of coffee, or glasses of wine. Focused in the moment, with thoughts flying in every direction, these works act like an improvisational jazz riff that never looses track of the melody, while never drawing recognition to it in sequence, either.
These explorations, presented in text, color and visual layers create a multidimensional narrative. As in life, there is no singular meaning, no clear definition. Ober's narratives, by use of juxtaposition and unlikely relationships, can be read in any number of ways, encouraging a viewer to roll in their own associations and to enrich the experience.
"My conception of validity is entirely subjective, based on my suburban upbringing, my sense of humor, and my own tunnel-vision rebellion. There is a sense of play and meditation in my work, found in the stream-of-consciousness chatting I document, and also frustration, loss, and nostalgia. The search for meaning and reflection in the scrutiny of the evidential details is what fuels me, although the paintings typically yield unexpected outcomes, and answers to questions I haven't asked yet."
Cara Ober earned her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2005. Based in Baltimore, MD, Ober teaches at MICA, Johns Hopkins University and Towson University. She also writes for several local publications on the arts and curates an exhibition space in Baltimore that showcases works on paper. In the past year, her work has been shown in a number of local and national exhibits, including second prize in The 2007 Bethesda Painting Awards, and a solo show at Flashpoint In Washington D.C.
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