Aporia
Artist: Katherine Covarrubias
Dates: Jan 30, 2026 – March 29, 2026
Artist Reception: January 21, 6-8pm (Artist talk at 7)
“My work explores theology and its relationship to identity, power, and femininity. Recurring throughout my practice is an interest in the blurred boundary between belief, illusion, and the idea of religion as an amorphous entity onto which people can —for better or worse— project their desires and impulses. This idea is explored in works such as Apophenia, where I examine the human tendency to find patterns and connections in unrelated events through mechanisms like confirmation bias. A reinterpretation of religious iconography, my work is influenced by Baroque-era painters and elicits a sense of transcendence through ecclesiastical imagery while confronting the complexities of religion in the context of mortality, indoctrination, wonder, and the problem of unrepresentability itself.”
Synopsis
“In Aporia, Covarrubias confronts the complex nature of religion as a mechanism of indoctrination, attempting to understand the form of an amorphous entity onto which people can —for better or worse— project their desires and impulses. In navigating this ambivalence, Covarrubias was confronted with the limits of her own
philosophical posture. It became evident that even in her skepticism, she remained embedded within the very discourse she sought to interrogate. As a result of her upbringing, God was woven into Covarrubias’s life through childhood rituals, holiday traditions, and family structures—many of which have since fractured or disappeared. In this context, the figure of God mirrors a familiar relational dynamic: an authority that demands loyalty, forgiveness, and compromise, sustained by the persistence of unresolved attachment. What initially appeared as cynicism revealed itself instead as a deferral of grief—a resistance to acknowledging God as something once experienced as a person beyond a structure. Aporia ultimately emerges as an allegory for family dynamics: the compulsion to stay, the difficulty of severing belief from love. In the persistent unease of trusting what cannot be seen, Covarrubias occupies a space of aporia—doubting in both directions, suspended between disbelief and longing.”
About the Artist
About the Artist
“Katherine Covarrubias is a Dallas-based, self-taught visual artist who works primarily in large-scale oil and acrylic painting. Her art reinterprets religious iconography through a contemporary and critical lens. Her work has been exhibited across Texas, notably at ICOSA Collective, where the group exhibition Apophenia was titled after her featured painting. She has also shown at regional institutions including TACA’s Autumn Fair, Arts Fort Worth, The Atelier, and 400H Gallery. In 2024, Covarrubias was awarded the Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund Grant through the Dallas Museum of Art. While apprenticing under artist Francisco Moreno, Katherine assisted on the mural “The Practitioners” at Expo Park and “Historia Sintética” at the Dallas Contemporary. Most recently, Katherine’s solo show “Aporia” will debut at Umbrella Gallery in February 2026. Katherine is currently an Artist in Residence at the Cedars Union (Cohort V) where she continues to expand her practice.”
You can read more about Katherine and her work on her personal website or her Instagram: @katherinecovarrubias_
Photography credit: @cindypngo