Karina on "Grounded"

Ahead of her two-person exhibition at Uprise Art, Karina Bania gives us a look inside her San Diego studio.

Karina's paintings act as a record of both physical and emotional time. Her gestural abstract paintings are created by allowing thinned paint to pool and settle into the absorbent canvas. Working intuitively, she balances spontaneity with intention, allowing forms to naturally emerge as fluid pigments flow and coalesce while subtly guiding them into place with deliberate precision. Quicker marks are added with drawing tools and opaque paint, punctuating the aqueous environs with each movement in reaction to the last - a delicate call and response between intention and surrender.

We navigate by invisible guides - the angle of light on stone, the weight of silence in the air, the way time pools in forgotten corners.

Karina Bania

Karina's paintings are poetic musings on place, with this body of work being inspired by her recent travels to Oaxaca and Mexico City. The paintings encode time-worn elements that have been shaped and softened by nature. In these spaces, weathered cobblestone streets merge with the vibrant jungle of trees, mountain streams carve through ancient stones, and the afternoon light turns clay walls into fields of color. Each painting delves into the intersection of observation and reflection, where the physical world fades into the gesture of paint across the canvas.

Between the falling and the settling, there is a moment when water becomes light, glowing with the sky's reflection.

Karina Bania

Grounded is on view through March 14, 2025.