Artist Karin Broker to present next Scientia Dec. 5

Artist Karin Broker to present next Scientia Dec. 5

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

As an artist, Karin Broker said her job is to pay attention and then regurgitate the information that sticks to her brain — or her gut — into something visual.

Broker, professor and chair of the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts, will discuss this creative process in a Dec. 5 talk titled ”An Artist Constructs the Human, or How I See Your DNA,” the next lecture in the Scientia series.

Broker’s tools range from prints, steel sculptures and small boxes to large-scale drawings, but it’s the information that has the most importance for her and has the most consistency.

”I accumulate information in my brain in small ‘Post-it’ note memory thoughts,” she said in her lecture abstract. ”When these notes about something or someone build up to a screaming crescendo, then I manipulate my tools to build those notes into an art ‘thing.’

”It’s a gut reaction married to a carefully studied idea,” she said. ”Sometimes it’s pretty, and sometimes it’s not.”

Broker will show examples of her work from the past several years and try to show her thought progression as an artist. She said her work has dealt visually with bad boyfriends, quirky family problems, death and that ever-marching ticking of time called ”aging.”

Her talk will be at 4 p.m. in McMurtry Auditorium, Anne and Charles Duncan Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow the talk.

For more information, visit the Scientia Web site, <www.ruf.rice.edu/~scientia>.