Abstract Painter and Art Writer
Katie Korotzer is a painter and art writer living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her non-representational paintings use gestural mark-making, the language of color, and the interaction of shape, texture and negative space to express movement and emotion. Her intention is to invite the viewer into an experience of exploration and contemplation leading to a place of renewed energy.
Artist’s Statement
My painting practice has always been about exploring my location in the landscape and the experience of noticing the emotional response as certain contours emerge in the course of making the painting. When beginning a new work, I think about distance. How far away is the place physically? Is there more than one place and if so, what is the distance that must be covered between them?
I have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1997 and call it home. But my roots are in the American South; quite a different place. Coming to terms with such a significant difference has meant that this reconciliation process shows up in every painting.
The tools I use to express this work are first, shape; second, color. In creating shape, lines must necessarily appear - some hard edged, some soft and blurry. Just like the lived experience of being grounded in one place, but facing everyday life in another; a person shapes a life by moving through and around boundaries.
Color has always been charged with emotional resonance for me. Strength flows through blues, blacks, burnt umber; like the land itself, or like the 100 year old oaks that grow upon it. Like the sky, the sea or the lake, blue is a way to travel across the distance to another place. White, yellow, coral and gray carry whispers of memories and suggestions of new possibilities. Reds, purples and pinks suggest the power to act; the power of change.
STUDIO 255B
ACRYLIC and OIL
