Katharine Weber

My work consists of landscape paintings that are covered with a pieced fabric overlay, to represent the cloth that covers us and filters much of our interaction with the world. The cloth between us and the world protects, obscures, conceals, and reveals our experiences.

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My grandmother was a drapery maker. She had an over-sized table in her basement, covered in padded thick canvas, upon which to measure and pin her large pieces of fabric.

That basement was ringed with upper windows on two sides that allowed square beams of light to infiltrate at just the right time of day. The lengths of fanciful fringes and braiding were tucked away under sewing machines and tables, attached to Styrofoam forms with large T pins. I remember sitting under those tables as a child, on the aged floor, pairing and stabbing the fringe into decorative layers while the other children played upstairs with more traditional toys. I don't know if she knew I was down there in the basement, with the old black and white tube television encased in a wood cabinet. My guess is that she did know, and that she allowed me to create. She was also an artist.

Her skilled and thoughtful approach to painting filled me with awe, and I loved to take a peek at what was happening on her easel when we came for a visit.

I hope to honor my heritage, to embrace the beauty in the fabric that embraces, protects, conceals, and reveals our interactions with the world. I place cloth on my canvas backdrop, echoing the way my grandmother placed material on her padded tables to create drapery.

Nature drives my creative process. There is such a startling variety of emotions and sensations in our environments, and I am aware -- especially with the introduction of Covid and protective wear -- that much of my experience is filtered through fabric. I love all of these experiences, from the feeling of minuteness when exposed to the ocean, to the fear of witnessing a mass of angry clouds that are the wrong color, to the simple peace of a familiar walk.

When I come across a landscape that inspires me, I take note of the underlying geometry in the space. This natural organization is the inspiration for the way I cut and piece together the fabric that will filter that experience.

I paint a landscape in a way to capture the mood of that particular time and place. I scour my memory for the sensations of the scene; the scent of the rain on eucalyptus trees, the blinding traffic lights morphed by rain drops, or the bleached sights and sounds of a snowstorm.

When the underpainting is finished, I bind the pieced fabric overlay to the canvas with an acrylic medium. As it dries, the folds and undulations of the material are frozen into place. The cloth appears to be still wet, and retains some translucency. The sculptural folds of fabric reveal and conceal the underlying landscape painting in a dramatic way. This mimics our interaction with the rest of the world through the cloth that so frequently acts as a barrier between us and everything else.

Cloth surrounds us and we feel a personal connection to fabric. We are constantly embraced by material, and we naturally want to touch it. This natural desire to touch extends to my paintings. The first thing people want to do when they see my artwork is feel it, and I encourage viewers to do just that.

Education:

Occidental College, BA (Art History and Visual Arts), 1999

Tags:

Contemporary, abstract, landscape, color field, modern.