…In the gray area between illusion and reality, Paabus creates what I will call liminal mappings, abstractions studying relationships of causality. In these spatial explorations fractures, accumulations, and dualities complicate the logical grid that they interact with, whether in prints, sculptures, or installations. An ideal conclusion is usually embedded within the game model, with various strategies steering players in the interest of gaining control, or ultimately, victory. Her information heavy, multilayered approach to printmaking illuminates the fact that there are often no right or wrong means for arriving at that end point – in a game, or in life. To quote the artist, “these spaces of actuality, memory, imagination, and paradox describe the nuances of our experiences.”2 Elements of chance, luck, and superstition obfuscate any clear-cut path…

Read the full essay here:
http://www.fernwey.com/datamining

In this new body of work, Kristina Paabus explores the systems and strategies that we use to perceive, control, and negotiate our surroundings. Tools such as language, architecture, beliefs, and game theory, expose our constant yet sometimes futile attempts at structure. Through a multidisciplinary approach, Paabus creates images, environments, and situations that elaborate on logical organizational tactics and illogical superstitions. These hybrid spatial conversations explore factual and fictional constructions that we employ to interact with the world around us. In parameters, repetition, reality, and illusion we attempt to gain a sense of order – or at least fulfill our desire to believe.

Kristina Paabus (US/EE) earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Kristina has exhibited her work throughout the US and Europe, including in Dallas, Iowa City, Detroit, Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Reykjavik, Miami, Berlin, and Tallinn. Paabus is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship for Installation Art in Estonia, the Grant Wood Fellowship in Printmaking at The University of Iowa, an Illinois Arts Council Grant, and Oberlin College Faculty Research Grants. Kristina has attended artist residences at ACRE, Ox-Bow, Women’s Studio Workshop, Kimmel Harding Nelson, Lillstreet, Culture Factory Polymer, Samband Íslenskra Myndlistarmanna, and Inside Zone. This upcoming summer she will be the Printmaking Artist-In-Residence at Emmanuel College in Boston. Prior to her current position Paabus taught at Ox-Bow School of Art, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and The University of Iowa. Kristina lives and works in Ohio where she is the Assistant Professor of Reproducible Media at Oberlin College.

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Tags: Chicago, Data Mining: Kristina Paabus Mapping the Game, Even If, Fernwey, Kristina Paabus, Lauren Fulton, West Town