Patricia Katchur
Cloudscape, Spacescape & Landscape Series
Photographic abstractions of stains, cracks, shapes, and other ordinary items form the first layer. Yet within these mundane impressions, I imagine otherworlds. Using charcoal, pastel, paint, and other mixed-media upon a photograph, a ceiling crack transforms into a mountain; the stain, a wonderfully puffy cloud; meanwhile a discarded ceramic plate transmutes into another galaxy's planet. Visual plays of perception. Most inspirations are born from my digestion, percolation and exaltation of the Sonoran Desert region (including the wondrous nighttime sky). I remain awestruck by the beauty, harshness and expanse of our surrounding natural world. It is the dreamland.
Exhibitions
Cactus & Clouds group exhibition, The Galeria at the YWCA, Tucson AZ, 2016
Summer of Love - Mykl Wells, Patricia Katchur, Valerie Galloway, Michael David Salon, Tucson AZ, 2016
Beautiful Dark - Joni Wallace & Patricia Katchur, Historic Hotel Congress Lobby Gallery, 2015
Small Works Invitational, Tohono Chul, Tucson AZ, 2015
The Sky Above group exhibition, Tohono Chul, Tucson AZ, 2015
Desierto solo exhibtion, Tucson Botanical Gardens, Tucson AZ, 2012
Cloudscape
excerpt from Dream Skies / review by Margaret Regan, Tucson Weekly, August 4, 2016
The photographers—and mixed-media photographers—make a particularly strong showing. Patricia Katchur, long a photog of desert landscapes (and owner of the toy store Yikes), has created a suite of inventive mixed-media wall works that combine photography, watercolor and charcoals.
"Cloudscape #2" pictures a velvety black sky lit by dozens of white stars. A fluffy white cloud presides at the top, making the image a counterintuitive mix of night and day. For the backdrop, Katchur pools black paint and charcoal on the slick photographic paper. The watery paint has rolled around, staining the surface with shapes and lines and creating a luscious textured surface that combines the best of photography and painting.
"Cloudscape #5" pictures five white-and-gray cumulus cuties ascending stair-step-style into the heavens. This time the artist colors the background sky in sepia tones, making the piece seem like the work of an old-fashioned astronomer, an impression heightened by the antique golden frame.
Katchur even captures some of her clouds in glass. Two works are like paperweights, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. Inside, the tiny photos are enticingly distorted by the curve of the glass. "DreamWorld Cloud #4817" has a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds; "DreamWorld Moody Moon" is its nighttime counterpoint. Against a dark brown sky, its clouds are lit from behind by moonlight.
Spacescape
I am forever inspired by Southern Arizona’s bewitching nighttime sky - mysterious meteor showers, spectacular stargazing, fantastical planets. I like to dream about the world beyond, especially the alluring darkness of the outer space.
As well, I am very intrigued by the use of repetitious patterning and abstraction in the metamorphosing of a subject matter and/or a design. Much of this inspiration is derived from the recurrent life, death, life cycle of the natural world. A flower is a flower but each is unique. With each abstractive layer is a transmutation of an evolutionary process of creativity. A compelling and intoxicating exploration of thought and articulation on a journey to unknown terrain.
Stardust and Mysterial are envisagements of such nighttime daydreams. Mysterial is dark and chaotic. A cacophony of confusion. Passionate paroxysms. Stardust is postives and possibilites. A world surrounded by beauty and potential. Lucky falling stars and fireballs of promise.
Spacescape
Landscape