Gina Voelker Bobrowski

I am a full-time studio artist, community arts practitioner and a devoted teacher. Born in New Orleans to a creative family and community, I now reside in central New Mexico with beloved family and friends. What connect the two places for me are their singular geographies, diverse cultures and belief systems. This inspires a unique expressiveness that pervades most aspects of daily life. It imbues everyday moments, and simple acts, with a sense of the sacred.

My work celebrates numerous approaches, materials, and processes, with endless curiosity and invention. Formats include functional objects and pottery made-for-daily-use, ceramics and mixed media sculpture, site works, works-on-paper, assemblages, murals, mosaics and community art. All are connected through flowing, unscripted narratives, intensive research and a sense of play.

Recurrent themes address and/or explore the struggles and the resiliency of the spirit, societal concerns, transformation and regeneration, place, community and the relationships between nature and culture, intuition and logic.

My formal education includes the Penland School of Crafts, Louisiana State University, (BFA Ceramics), the University of Georgia Athens, (MFA Ceramics) and a few semesters of study at the New Mexico Center for Montessori Education. Full –time academic appointments include the Ohio State University, Columbus, the UGA Studies Abroad Program, Cortona, Italy, and my present tenured position at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Continued additional teaching occurs through national and international artist workshops, Pre K- 12 artists in schools engagements, and arts facilitations in underserved communities.

My work can be seen in the permanent collections of the American Museum of Art and Design, New York, Ewing Gallery of Art & Architecture, Knoxville, Kutani International Ceramics Fair, Ishikawa, Japan, Laumeier Sculpture Park St. Louis, The Maher Collection, Scripps College, Pomona, CA, San Angelo Museum of Art, TX and WOCEF, Kyonggi – do, Incehon, South Korea.