August—Katherine Taylor

Painting the Invisible: Unveiling What’s Under the Sheen

Opens August 2, from 3-7pm during the Old Mill District’s First Friday Gallery Walk

Katherine focuses this body of work on depicting the underlying mystery of her subjects, as a way to understand the invisible qualities lurking just below the surface of a person, animal, landscape or even a bowl of fruit.

Classically trained artists like Katherine Taylor learn techniques to recreate a 3-dimensional effect on a 2-dimensional surface (like a canvas). “It’s fun and amazing to be able to achieve this 3-D effect, but it’s still not enough to create a great work of art. I am sure you have seen paintings of subjects that are accurately rendered but devoid of any emotion or meaning. I attempt is to break through the sheen of realism to a deeper level of meaning.”

Katherine believes mastery can only be achieved when an artist goes beyond realism to capture the essence of a portrayal, or the “soul.” Even inanimate subjects —places and objects— have a soul or essence that we can feel.

Painting essence is not always easy, however. Sometimes an artist attempts to capture it by depicting movement and rhythm, as if there is a before and after  taking place within that one snapshot in time. Sometimes essence is achieved by illustrating the underlying emotion or intention of the subject. Sometimes it’s just a matter of painting the electromagnetic wavelength of light that brings the object into being (because without light, of course, nothing would be visible). “That is why I always pay as much attention to painting the light surrounding a subject as I do the person, animal, or object itself. Light energy is mystical and helps to reveal ‘essence.’ ”

All the paintings in this show are Katherine’s attempts to paint the invisible, and trying to live up to Rick Rubin’s wise adage…”Artists allow us to see what we are unable to see, but somehow already know.”