Christina Uebelein

Christina Uebelein was born in Maryland, raised in Europe, and moved to the Islands in 1967.  She  currently lives and works in Honolulu, Hawaii.  She received a Masters in Architecture degree and a Certificate in Historic Preservation from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1995 and was awarded The American Institute of Architects, Henry Adams Fund, AIA School Medal and Certificate of Merit for Excellence in the Study of Architecture.

Her sculptures embody the aesthetics of assemblage, Surrealism, and Nouveau Realisme -- art forms in which natural and manufactured, traditionally non-artistic materials and objets trouvés are assembled into three-dimensional structures.  Her constructions combine organic, geometric, industrial, feral, fantastical, allegorical, kinesthetic, and marvellous elements into a unified whole.  In the words of one admirer, “They are at once elegant, whimsical, and surprising.”  As is apparent in some Japanese design, Uebelein develops her themes using asymmetry, a stylization of natural forms, an accidental and deliberate treatment of the same element, a combination of abstract and naturalistic elements, an illusion of depth created by overlapping planes, and a repetition of elements to create texture.

Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant (1926) concludes with a declaration that:  ‘The marvellous is the eruption of contradiction within the real.’  In the same way, the visual metaphors of Uebelein’s sculptures move the viewer from familiar natural or manufactured objects and materials toward ‘an alternative universe of imaginative and analogical connections.’

Uebelein continues her practice of architecture and also is the founder of Ten Thousand Dreams Art Studio.

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