Bloomfield's Box Heart features Keith Garubba

The Living Rose Window:

Printmaking on Paper and Glass by Keith Garubba

July 24 - August 18

In his printmaking, Keith Garubba explores relationships between architecture and biology, which he describes more simply as the things we make and the things we're made of. "I always feel like maybe we're trying to recreate ourselves in our artwork," he says, "and asking what it is to be human."

He titles his pieces after biological processes, which offer crucial insight to the artworks. The piece below, for example, is titled Angiogenesis, a term for the development of new blood vessels; in some cases, these new vessels provide nutrients for cancerous tissue. Even if you're unfamiliar with the terminology, compositional elements like line and color portray a sense of movement, as though some type of process is occurring.

Angiogenesis, Silkscreen and Collagraph

Whether it's the background of acrylic wash, the transition from crisp to faint colors, or the curling passages of inked string, Garubba's artworks evoke movement and spontaneity. Nearly symmetrical images of rose windows and biohazard symbols boldly mark Garubba's works as well. Spontaneity and symmetry then combine to create aesthetic balance within each composition.

Garubba's printmaking is a process of layers. He can typically complete pieces on paper in four layers, and his glassworks require more. A majority of the artworks displayed in The Living Rose Window are silkscreen and collagraph printing on paper. Some, however, are glassworks, which involve a more complicated process of silkscreening high fire enamels on glass and then kiln-firing to fuse the glass.

 Wake 2, Silkscreened Enamels Fused on Glass

In the quaint setting of Box Heart Gallery's furnished space, Garubba's works feel at home, where they provide a dynamic juxtaposition of our given bodies and the spaces we build to house them.