Kari Marboe

Kari Marboe takes on the role of an artist and detective, flattening as many data points as possible around the history of people, objects, and experiences in order to create new narratives that intertwine with our present moment. She presents her work in the form of ceramic sculptures, clay printed onto watercolor paper, archival images, accidentally stolen keys, and other site-specific elements.


Please consider joining Kari's family and friends in supporting the Kari Marboe Endowed Lectureship at California College of the Arts. This annual lectureship will honor, in perpetuity, her commitment to creative collaboration, exploring curiosities and themes of our common humanity.

RECENT PROJECTS

Negoro, exhibition with Sequoia Miller
Greenwich House Pottery, New York, NY / 2021
Greenwich House Pottery
In this exhibition, Marboe and Miller use the historic record to engage with Negoro from their different fields of expertise: Marboe as an artist making response artworks to Negoro’s history, forms, and feminism; and Miller as a studio potter turned art historian writing about her life. Marboe first learned about Negoro while doing research in GHP’s archives during her 2019 residency, and Miller has written about her throughout his career as an art historian. Both were compelled by Negoro’s artistic trajectory—studying at UCLA, being relocated to the Heart Mountain internment camp in Wyoming because of her Japanese heritage, teaching and showing at GHP, showing in MoMA’s famous Good Design exhibition (1950–1951, 1951–1952), and establishing the ceramics program at University of Connecticut. Through this exhibition, Marboe and Miller seek to engage with Negoro through their separate media—clay and writing—to encourage another generation of makers to learn from her work.

Keith + Kari, solo exhibition
Saint Mary's College Museum of Art, Moraga, CA / 2021
Saint Mary's College Museum of Art
Contemporary ceramic artist Kari Marboe responds with site-specific works in dialogue with the 19th century California landscape painter William Keith. Contemplating change and time, Kari explores the truth of place through form and materials specific to the region's identity of wilderness and Keith's artistic practice.

Duplicating Daniel, solo exhibition
Roll Up Project / 2021
Roll Up Project

Origin Stories: Expanded Ceramics in the Bay Area
Curated by Tanya Zimbardo / 2021
Origin Stories
Artists: Ebitenyefa Baralaye, Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik and Maria Inés Leal, The Brick Factory, Ilana Crispi, Futurefarmers, Nicki Green, Dana Hemenway, Kari Marboe, Mutual Stores (Rosa Novak + Kate Pruitt), Stephanie Syjuco

Everyday Archaeology with Kari Marboe
A STATE OF CERAMICS discussion at A-B Projects, LA / 2021
Everyday Archaeology at A-B Projects
MATERIALS FOR EXPERIMENTING AND/OR TEACHING ARE IN PDF FORM - FOLLOW THE LINK ABOVE!

COMMON GROUND: ARTISTS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA Exhibition
Sonoma County Community Center, Sonoma, CA / 2021
Invitation from Ashwini Bhat @ashwinibhat
Common Ground