With a long history of working and showing in Florida, Karen Rifas shows no signs of slowing down in her continuous creative giving to the community. On Saturday, September 21st, Rifas will show Works on Paper at the Arevalo Gallery in the Design District. For years, Rifas was represented by Bernice Steinbaum at her eponymous gallery in Midtown. Her most recognizable work (with Steinbaum) consisted of installations where small leaves were seemingly suspended in mid-air by a series of taut wires pierced through walls and floors. On a larger scale, Rifas engages poetry and language in linear shapes, revealing multiple possibilities in something as (not quite so) simple as a drawn line.
Rifas' paper-based work appears to challenge notions of line and color possessing a singular dimension on a single-dimensional surface; there are plural gradients, shades and concepts that the lines, alone, may reveal. This exhibition is sure to open the eyes of skeptics and supporters, alike, of this phenomenon. Artists such as Rothko, Newman, Serra, Mondrian and Lewitt were able to convince the world how the line held a life force all its own. Karen Rifas continues this process, in earnest.
Rifas is a community member deserving praise for more than her creative talents: she is an Adjunct Professor at New World School of the Arts, Miami-Dade Community College and had served the same position at the University of Miami (where she received both her BFA in 1985 and her MFA in 1988). Apart from showing her work at galleries in New York, Washington, D.C., Panama, Mexico and Chile, Rifas has shown locally at the Bass Museum of Art, the de la Cruz Collection, the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art and the Boca Raton Museum of Art. Rifas' work has been featured in publications such as Art in America, ArtNews, Sculpture and Art Papers.
Arevalo Gallery showcases works and artists ranging from post-World War II Constructivism, Surrealism, Photography, Multiples and Editions, all the way to the practices and artists of the present moment. The gallery is open Monday thru Saturday from 10am to 6pm, located above Cartier in the Miami Design District at 151 NE 40th Street, Suite 200. For more information, visit www.arevalogallery.com/the-gallery or call (305) 860-3311.
