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American Contemporary Art Magazine: Conversation with Virginia Katz
Art In America: Virginia Katz
ArtScene: Virginia Katz
Coast Magazine: Earth-Like Planet
Whitehot Magazine: Virginia Katz, "Charted Territories"
OC Weekly: 'Earth-like Planet' says Extinction, Shmextinction
Orange Coast Magazine: Artist Spotlight
Artweek LA - Art Here and Now: Second Nature: Landscape Variations
IE Weekly: Definitely an E-Ticket
Los Angeles Times: Virginia Katz at Jancar Gallery, Getting Lost in a World of Nuances
LA Weekly: Playing Scales
ArtScene: Continued and Recommended Exhibitions
Flavorpill: ART
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- - 2011 - -
American Contemporary Art Magazine: Conversation with Virginia Katz
by Sabine La Boussière
December
>> link to article
Art in America: Virginia Katz
by Constance Mallinson
October
>> link to article
ArtScene: Virginia Katz
by Shirle Gottlieb
July/August
After wandering through galleries that feature cutting-edge trends in 21st-Century art (digital wizardry, in-your-face graffiti, electronic constructions, ocean debris sculpture, Photoshop enhancement, sustainable art, etc.), what a treat it is to see paint! Thick, traditional, tried-and-true, oozing oil pigment. That's the medium Virginia Katz has chosen for half of her new exhibit, "Charted Territories." And she has the technical skill to use it.
By slathering vibrant, earth-colored pigment on panels of wood with bold brush strokes and her palette knife, Katz creates three dimensional paintings that capture the textures, patterns, and raw surfaces of the earth. Swirling rivers and mounds of paint evoke bas relief sculpture and abstract expressionistic imagery simultaneously. Each work bears a simple title that describes some natural element such as "Mud" (overlapping layers of ochre pigment), "Slush" (irregular black and white cubes that suggest melting ice), and "Rio" (a coastline of gorgeous color that is a guaranteed show-stopper).
In the past Katz has captured the rhythm of waves, the patterns of light, and the motion of wind. Knowing her long fascination with nature, it comes as no surprise that her latest inspiration would be space - spurred on by recent satellite photographs. Just so, the second half of this exhibit is based on aerial views of the cosmos. Called "Formations" and "Path," each series consists of mixed-media, multilayered works on paper - plus leaves, vines, bark and soil which Katz has added to her process of painting, printing, drawing, and collage. With names such as "Red and Gray Dust Cloud," "Scape Cloud," "Night Smoke," and "Evening," these poetic, equivocal sky scapes can play mind-tricks with each person's perception and creative imagination.
Some viewers may interpret Katz's images as looking up from the earth into space (through climate, mist, and clouds). Conversely, others may see them as looking down from a satellite towards the earth (through time, space, and evolution). Then again, when we recall the vast role that both gradual and catastrophic processes of natural history have played in the formation of the universe over eons of time, some of the 'territories' Katz has 'charted' could be either or both of them. For example, if, as scientists believe, there was water on Mars millennia ago, its current landscape would certainly resemble Katz's captivating "Arid Ocean." And if, as we've been told, the climate of the North Pole was hot during its formation, "Arctic Red" would resemble a desert remnant of our pre-historic past. Katz created "Dissections," "Mixed Terrain," and "Path-Swell" after observing that natural patterns are similar wherever you look.
Whether in vast, large-scale territories or in small-scale mundane areas, physical topography (creases, crags, cracks, fissures, fumes, swells, mist) is indistinguishable. Emblematic patterns exist across the earth in monumental mountains and alluvial plains, as well as in mundane places as miniscule as drains and street gutters.
Katz's keen observations of the natural world, coupled with her inimitable expression of it through her art, give viewers a lot to think about. Indeed, each work in "Chartered Territories" provides a provocative view of the mysteries of Mother Nature.
>> link to article
Coast Magazine: Earth-Like Planet
by Roberta Carasso
July 1
>> link to article
Whitehot Magazine: Virginia Katz, "Charted Territories"
by Simone Kussatz
July
>> link to article
OC Weekly: 'Earth-like Planet' says Extinction, Shmextinction
by Stacy Davies
June 16
>> link to article
Orange Coast Magazine: Artist Spotlight
'Formations - Bloom'
by Anastacia Grenda
May
>> link to article
Artweek LA - Art Here Now: Second Nature: Landscape Variations (Excerpt)
January 24
Virginia Katz's mixed-media works on paper suggest micro and macroscopic photographs, or satellite images of the natural world. However, they are smartly crafted hand-manipulated surfaces derived from her interpretation of the elements - land, wind, and ocean.
>> link to article
- - 2010 - -
IE Weekly: Definitely an E-Ticket (Excerpt)
By Stacy Davies
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Curated by Bob Pece, "Earthviews" takes us on an organic outing with a wide variety of natural forms and foliage dotting our landscape. Virginia Katz's abstract swaths of color and texture all tumultuously in motion are clearly what came before man took over this Earth and what will no doubt return after we have long since vanished - reminding us once again that no matter how important we think we are, Nature will certainly get the last laugh.
>> link to article
- - 2008 - -
Los Angeles Times (AROUND THE GALLERIES): Virginia Katz at Jancar Gallery, Getting Lost in a World of Nuances
By David Pagel, Special to The Times
At first glance, Virginia Katz's mixed-media works on paper resemble satellite images of the Earth's surface. Tiny lines, complex shapes and organic colors seem to describe mountains, valleys and plains as well as rivers, lakes and oceans. The details are so exquisite and convincing that it's tempting to stand back and try to determine what part of the world is being depicted: The Baja coast? A Mesopotamian waterway? The Russian tundra? A Guatemalan jungle?
But too many loose ends -- or befuddling inconsistencies -- prevent you from matching any of Katz's 20 abstract images at the Jancar Gallery with a specific location. As you move in closer to the 22-by-30-inch works, it's clear that they are nonrepresentational. You get lost in a world thick with visual incidents yet unlike anything you have seen.
Katz's exceptionally nuanced works are monoprints she makes by crinkling up sheets of kitchen foil, dripping on colored inks and then running the shallow reliefs through a press, which leaves an imprint on a sheet of paper. After letting it dry, Katz draws with pencils, adds watercolor washes and gouache accents and then tops off the controlled chaos by dusting it with dry pigments.
The results have the intimacy of handmade artifacts and the unself-consciousness of serendipitous accidents. It's a felicitous fusion of taking control and letting go.
The surfaces of Katz's works have nothing in common with the slickness of digital imagery. Most impressive, her modestly scaled pieces are expansive. Each seems to bring more space into the room than its literal dimensions suggest. And each is so packed with scrappy happenstance and indescribable detail that no matter how long you look there's always more to see.
Katz makes mountains of molehills with eye-popping originality.
>> link to article
LA Weekly: Playing Scales
Ronn Davis, Virginia Katz, Janet Jenkins (Excerpt)
By Peter Frank
Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - 10:00 am
Virginia Katz 2007
Virginia Katz's paintings, including several paint-things hung directly on the wall, also play havoc with our sense of scale — and our sense of space as well. Katz's apparent abstractions are also just as apparently based on views of earthly topography from space, of oceanic swells, alluvial rills, brown land and green, and other terrain conjurations that double as fluid, painterly abstractions. If Katz has not in fact based her aqueous fantasies on satellite photographs, she succeeds impressively in the pretense. Janet Jenkins' scapes are considerably more earthbound, but obviously more imaginary than Katz's. Rendering foliage, branches and forests alike, as luminous silhouettes radiating a visual heat, Jenkins abstracts what is close to our eyes just as Katz abstracts what is far from them. Jenkins proffers a different kind of beauty from that which Katz — or, for that matter, Davis — does, but all these painters (or at least painterly sculptors) finally exercise similar levels of opulent imagination. Ronn Davis at LA Contemporary, 2634 S. La Cienega Blvd., Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; thru Feb. 23. (323) 559-6200 or www.lacontemporary.com. Virginia Katz and Janet Jenkins at Jancar, 3875 Wilshire Blvd., Thurs.-Sat., noon-5 p.m.; thru Feb. 9. (213) 384-8077 or www.jancargallery.com.
>> link to article
ArtScene (Feb. 2008):
Virginia Katz's mixed-media works on paper look rather like satellite photos of places that don't exist or existed long ago. The many layers of hand-worked powders and washes, however, look back at art history with the same intensity that it dreams up the pseudo geographical. Traces of coastlines and vegetal growth inhabit her compositions with the same resiliency as memories of Jean Dubuffet's and Jean Fautier's texture studies of the 1950's. Along with her "Force Fields--Theory I" series, a few curious and beguiling string and paper collages fashioned from hanging brochure fragments map out her travels through the real geography of her life. Two different maps for two distinct regions of the imagination.
(Jancar Gallery, Midtown, LA.)
>> link to article
Flavorpill: ART
Virginia Katz
When: Sat Jan 5 - Sat Feb 9 (Thur-Sat: 12-5pm)
Where: Jancar Gallery, 3875 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 1308
Price: FREE
Details: http://jancargallery.com/exhibitions.php
LA's Virginia Katz uses a complex mixed-media process that involves so many layers of hand-worked pigments and liquids, her art can almost be considered geological. Her stratous technique particularly informs her recent creations, such as this exhibition's works on paper, in which she investigates the relationship between natural landscapes, atmospheric phenomena, and the female body.
Shana Nys Dambrot – Managing Editor
>> link to article
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