What the Sea Gave #2, 30 x 22 inches, handmade paper, mixed media.
Perihelion, 22.5 x 30 inches, handmade paper, mixed media.
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plaster, the fibers and images are cemented together as the
paper and ink dry.
The result is a comfortable, beautiful contrast, high-lighting
the variation of human experience and the
limitations in how we understand difference. Images of
wholesome Americans in cookie-cutter domestic spaces
coexist with high-flying trapeze artists inside a nostalgi-cally
painted box.
“What it really addresses is how little we understand
other cultures that we live with,” Huber explains. “And it
highlights the fact that what may seem exotic to some is
not exotic to others.”
“The Pink Room” showcases Huber’s brilliant subtlety
and her skill in connecting paper and papermaking to a
broad range of concepts. Each work in her studio space
overflows with emotion and is pregnant with experiential
knowledge; her use of soft lines, muted color palettes and
delicate textures entice the viewer to meditation. Only
occasionally working representationally, Huber’s pieces
speak volumes, without needing to literally speak.
Huber moved to Wilmington from her long-time home
in California in 1987. She quickly made friends in the
expanding art scene, joined the group of teachers at
DREAMS of Wilmington, and became part of the group of
artists at Acme Studios in downtown Wilmington.
She continues to teach with DREAMS and recently spear-headed
the memorial exhibition for Rick Hobbs, an Acme
co-founder, beloved Wilmingtonian, and talented painter
and sculptor. The show, which opened July 28, bears the
mark of Huber’s insightful eye and interest in the complex-ity
and subtlety of human experience.
Huber has a unique way of thinking about her work and
its development, which parallels her observations about
memory and time. She describes herself and her practice
as circularly evolving. Images, experiences and projects run
into and out of one another, rather than following linearly
from one to the next. The shade of pink that Huber chose
for “The Pink Room,” for example, was a slightly muted ver-sion
of what she found on the walls of Mary Nixon’s home,
and she consistently works on three to five different pieces
at a time.
“Lately, I find that I’m playing with something from the
past running into the present,” she says. “And I don’t think
of myself as dictating to the surface, but as collaborating
with it. There are multiple parts of my mind thinking at
once, and when I’m not sure what to do next, I decide to
just paint and see what happens. My work represents how
in memory we have really clear visions, and really vague
visions. When we put them together, they give us impres-sions
of what was or could have been, but we can’t see the
whole, precise image — just little vignettes of clarity.”
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