Kara Maria’s Abstract World of Endangered Animals

Maria’s exhibit at the de Saisset Museum combines expressive painting with “hidden” commentary.

Kara Maria, a San Francisco based artist, has just begun a five-month stay at Santa Clara’s de Saisset Museum with her collection, “Precious and Precarious: Life on the Edge of Extinction.”

Maria’s work encompasses a wide range of current political and environmental issues. Maria’s creations have been featured in a multitude of Bay Area museums and collections, along with garnering a wide-ranging critical acclaim. Her visiting collection focuses on a variety of endangered animal species, all expressed through the mediums of painting and acrylic on paper. The exhibit contains works dating from 2013 to 2021 which document at-risk animals from different regions around the world.

As the name suggests, this assortment of Maria’s work focuses directly on specific species, as she gives each creature its own canvas and unique style. Every piece features an animal “hidden” among striking experimentations of color and form. Maria’s creatures can often be found perched on a swooping splash of color or swimming through an abstract, geometric plane.

Holistically, the exhibit includes elements of abstract art, along with the vibrant visual contrasts found in pop art. These disciplines are translated through Maria’s expert use of each species’ color and hue to construct stimulating backdrops for her photorealistic renderings of endangered animals. As each piece bolsters a distinct though interconnected style, this collection — taken fully — emerges as its own world within the long white walls of the museum.

While Maria’s depiction of each animal is striking, what viewers immediately fixate on are the beautiful and complex abstractions that dominate each canvas. Many pieces take on the appearance of dazzling explosions, often through scattered shapes or what look like wavy bolts of electricity. As viewers move closer to each painting, these visuals begin to take on different textures and dimensions. Maria uses glossy finishes along with rough, layered paints to give each painting a sense of heterogeneity.

Placed center stage as visitors enter the exhibit, several of Maria’s paintings act as standouts in both size and style. One of these highlighted paintings, “The Sea, The Sky, The You And I (Blue Whale),” features a majestic blue whale, floating on a seemingly tie-dyed canvas, showered with blue, purple and magenta dots. This piece captures the inherent depths of the ocean where these whales reside, while also depicting outbursts of color, as if the whale is swimming under a rousing fireworks display.

"Stardust (Ohlone Tiger Beetle)," image courtesy of the artist.

The largest piece in the gallery is titled “Stardust (Ohlone Tiger Beetle),” and contains pillowing, cloud-like wisps along with sharp, splattered cells across a pink and red gradient. This canvas features spray-painted blotches, dripping down red and orange, along with jagged ribbons of cyan that engulf the painting like a spider web. The beetle rests subtly in the center of the picture, as it almost blends in with the other green circles around it.

"Into the Blue (Whale Shark)," image courtesy of the artist.

Another powerful contribution is the painting titled, “Into the Blue (Whale Shark),” which includes a military motif with camouflage-textured swirls and a detailed submarine in the lower-left corner. For the viewer, this piece begins as vibrant bursts of blue and sliding drops of paint that form delicate waterfalls. What follows, though, is Maria’s cue towards the subtleties that exist in the fight for existence among endangered animals.

For “Stardust (Ohlone Tiger Beetle)” and “Into the Blue (Whale Shark),” like many others in the collection, the endangered animal is far from the focal point of the piece. While the overarching concept is based in the depiction and awareness of each creature, each animal often takes a backseat when it comes to the pieces themselves. This artistic choice, perhaps, says something about how we view endangered animals.

For many recent and future extinctions, human activity (and neglect) through poaching, pollution and habitat destruction stands at the forefront of this worsening global issue. Maria interrogates how our own perceptions of this problem manifest by calling viewers to consider where these animals live. In reality, it’s a diverse set of climates and ecosystems, though in her paintings, it is a fictional world. This too urges viewers to consider how we may romanticize these rare creatures within our own imaginary worlds.

This dual sense in which Maria paints — one of magnetic style and form, the other of clever commentary — provides a rich and gratifying experience worthy of reflection and revisiting.

Kara Maria’s “Precious and Precarious: Life on the Edge of Extinction” is open now at the de Saisset Museum from Jan. 28 to June 11.