‘Maintaining Indecision’
Durango artist navigates abyss of uncertainty

Karina Hean stands in front of her“Pendular Motion Series.” Hean’s work is  on display at The Durango Art Center through April./Photo by David Halterman

by Jules Masterjohn

Our times seem to be marked by uncertainty. The need for control appears to get high ratings these days. This may be a truth of the human condition – that we just don’t know what will happen, yet we strive to find out anyway. We look to science, measurements, statistics and technology to inform us so we can feel safe. From my lookout post, the importance our culture invests in living with uncertainty is waning. We simply must know to feel at ease.

As each of us wonders and comes to terms with our individual comfort levels regarding life’s doubts, one Durango artist is using “not knowing” as her muse. The drawings and mixed media works by Karina Hean tell the stories of her travels into the abyss of uncertainty, using a visual language that is distinct, direct and diverse. Her exhibition, “Maintaining Indecision,” currently on display in the Durango Art Center’s Art Library, offers us a close look into an artist’s journey.

Fresh out of graduate school, Hean arrived in Durango two years ago to begin teaching as a visiting assistant professor in art at Fort Lewis College. She is currently seeking teaching positions elsewhere due to the culmination of her contracted position at the end of this semester.

For Hean, uncertainty is invigorating. Offering some glimpses into her creative thoughts and motivations, Hean’s exhibition statement reads: “The majority of the works in this exhibition arose from a need for change and challenge. Simply put, they present various ways of working and the remnants of the beginning stages of searching for new directions and interests.” Her statement makes reference specifically to the aesthetic and conceptual concerns of the artwork, yet I cannot overlook the connection between her art and her life. The exhibit “Maintaining Indecision” seems to address life’s questions, using the creative process to help her understand – or at least see the possibilities – in her life.

This is most powerfully expressed in the “Irene Series” drawings. In these four drawings, Hean’s marks range from the spontaneous to the deliberate. These were some of the first drawings she made, after a short period of nonproductivity, so she was “warming the muscles back up, allowing for new things to come into the work.” The drawings look fresh: the washes and smudges in earthy tones are the background onto which she has overlain the outlines of geometric diagrams.

The “Irene Series,” created in response to the death of a close friend, show Hean’s raw, emotional state in tandem with her intellectual nature. As if trying to find a rationale for her feelings of anger, grief and sadness, the artist applied arithmetic certainties onto the borderless, tear stained pages. These are beautiful and compelling drawings, showing Hean’s strong interest and ability in considering both the logical and the emotional states of being, attempting to depict “chaos and order.”

One of the four works in Hean’s “Irene Series,” created in response to a friend’s death. /Photo by Jules Masterjohn

The gallery display is divided into two halves. The east wall holds the emotional and gestural drawings, “Untitled” works defined by wispy lines, subtle values, contrasting areas of light and dark that draw one’s eye to the most dynamic convergence of visual elements. Luscious, sensual – almost anatomical – these sensitive drawings remind this viewer that we live in a physical, material world. One can get lost or take refuge in the shadows and intimate spaces she has created.

On the west side of the gallery, Hean’s “Pendular Motion Series” reveals her intellectual side. The six monotypes in the series are embellished with graphite, acrylic paint, colored pencil or collage. The concept behind this work is grounded in physics, each image portraying a consistent visual language to mark time and indicate motion, such as the stop action of a pendulum swinging or a rhythmic series of shapes signaling a counting system. Colorfully layered and visually playful, these images attempt to depict the various possibilities in the interaction of bodies moving in space and the impact that moving bodies have on one another.

In her “Emotional Proof Series,” Hean attempts to analytically diagram emotional states such as disappointment and infatuation. Using simple line drawings intersecting arcs, circles, triangles that resemble theorems or geometric proofs, each emotion is mapped out. These are not profound works and are not intended to be. “This is my most clever work, and I mean ‘clever’ in a bad way,” she offered. Drawn in graphite on paper and push pinned to the wall, her “verbal/visual one liners” could easily be overlooked. These drawings are just for fun and make reference to Euclidian geometric proofs that Hean memorized in college. She writes: “These proofs are logical and predictable. My version of these proofs is a humorous comment on the contemporary desire to categorize and comprehend human emotions.” They contrast the more emotionally and visually complex works in the exhibit.

And so it goes for us humans as we constantly try to figure things out, to find reason amidst life’s mechanism. As for Hean, she will continue to play with life’s possibilities and suspend making a decision about what direction her life and art will take. With an excited glint in her eye, she revealed, “I quite enjoy the uncertainty.”

Karina Hean’s work is on display through April in the Arts Library upstairs in the Durango Arts Center, 802 East Second Avenue. Hours are Monday - Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. •