In Awe Of Nature with Kathline Carr
This Month in the Main Gallery we are featuring core artists Kathline Carr and Frantz Lexy. Their exhibition, Land/Form runs through May 29, 2022. Below Kathline talks a bit about her process and inspiration.
I love hiking, particularly in wild, desolate places, and am fascinated by looking at the way light falls on the landscape when I am out on the trail, creating shapes that are craggy, or geometrical, or diffused—or shifting from one to the other. Sometimes I look at the sky or a mountain pass and try to remember the individual parts of the scene for later, when I will imagine the parts rearranged, the lights and darks reversed, or perhaps just one form that caught my eye. My dream travels take me to treks in Tibet, Alaska, Wyoming—I look at pictures of the landscapes in the places I’d like to go, and those images work their way into what I’m making as well. I am in awe of nature and the colors that exist and arise organically and atmospherically. Although I’m not painting the landscape representationally, my observations and memory of it is ever-present in my work, in some form.
The use of glazing in my paintings to build the surface slowly in layers is a ubiquitous part of my painting process. I like the varying of matte and reflective areas, and also the control over drying time that different mediums give. Also, the importance of drawing to my painting and printmaking processes cannot be overstated: I draw every day and I draw representationally, abstractly, and with many materials. Having a cleared table to begin working on has become important to me, and I usually spend time working through my ideas on paper with gouache before I get to a larger painting surface. The studies are related to the paintings, but I rarely copy a study directly; I’d rather discover through a conversation of mark making and iteration where the painting is taking me.