Julia Katz

Force of Nature In 2006, I started working with a theme of the figure in motion. My interest in that theme has evolved over time, shifting toward the interaction of a moving figure with its environment and continuing to grow to include other concepts of motion and energy. Those may be subtle biological or psychological energies, or enormous impersonal energies of our natural world. The color in this series was affected by my observation of the tropical landscape of Honduras where I visited last winter. Another influence on me during the making of these pieces is my current practice of Yoga and Qi Gong. My attention has expanded from observation of human movement in the external world to observation of the rhythmic movement of breath, as well as the idea of yin and yang energies. As we experienced several bouts of severe weather this summer, I considered the power of that energy and brought my awareness of that into these paintings. I use no visual references for the gestural abstraction in these paintings, although I have in mind that the forms I am inventing are organic and suggestive of nature. I work spontaneously and impulsively. Looking for compositions that strike me intuitively, I sometimes rotate the paintings in all 4 directions as I paint, searching for visual forms and relationships that occur unintentionally. View Julia Katz Biography