Still Life With The Outside

If there were one overriding thematic connection in my work, it would be illusion.  The intersection of illusion and contraries fascinates me: life and death; humor and tragedy; beauty and corruption; natural and constructed realities; experience and news.  I am curious about the struggles between diversity and unity in human, animal and plant societies.  I am captivated by complex issues that we all face, and yet experience intimately.  I am interested in the role of dark feelings, thoughts and states of mind in the process of transformation.  I am drawn to fire beneath reserve.

I think of painting as a slow yet dynamic process, expressing energy through the coupling of opposites.  The raw canvas is both filled and completely empty.  Akin to dreaming, I begin with an image in mind but I am not clear how it will manifest.  I do not derive my imagery from sleeping dreams but from my eyes, my imagination, my memory, as well as photography, historical references and chance.  These together construct the "whole."  In process, I pursue a dynamic interaction between intuitive images, a sensual and physical handling of the paint, and the spirit or accident of the moment.

Although, stylistically I incorporate representation, in paradox, I approach the canvas abstractly and employ gesture founded in Abstract Expressionism.  I throw paint at the canvas and sculpt the surface using my fingers, palette knife, sculpting and ceramic tools, cutters, nails, pins, bottle brushes, gold leaf, plastic, anything that is lying around.  Into the surface I incorporate paper collage, feathers, beans, tacks, sticks and glass and more.  My subject matter includes the figure, invented, remembered and/or quoted, as well as still life of paper, textiles, flora and fauna, food, weapons and toys.  I work whatever my mood and each piece combines the intentional with the accidental -- the textured layers forming what becomes the body and flesh of the painting.

I often approach illusion in the forms of cultural truths, myths, objects and histories that reach back into our collective and personal pasts.  Figure and still life evolve as open ended metaphors/allegories for concepts and environments that are themselves also metaphors/allegories, and therefore fold, like fabric, time or paint, back in on themselves.

My work is multi layered, multi textured, with multiple sources. Art takes time. 

Katherine Ace
http://www.katherineace.com