A few major lines of interest that run through all my artistic work.

I’ve always felt compelled to explore and take advantage of the very physicality of the material I’m working with at the moment. This has led me to a tendency to build articulated surfaces rather than applying color to a two-dimensional plane. In the early canvas paintings, the canvas is manipulated by cutting and sewing, used more as a textile and less as an inert support. The seams become drawing lines. These pieces are “stained” with very diluted acrylic medium. Currently, in the Pleats series, I’m working with tengucho Japanese rice paper. Tengucho is the thinnest, most light-weight paper currently being made and this very characteristic allows me to overlap pleated, translucent layers to create multi-dimentional constructions. Unframed, they are very fragile, so they get framed almost immediately in sturdy, deep shadow boxes with virtually invisible museum glass.

I have a natural affinity for working with water. I’ve tended to use watery mediums that seep into the substrate in a way that reveals its essence rather than conceal it. In the extensive series of drawings on rice-paper the medium is water, toned with different concentrations of sumi ink or dyes. Applied with brushes or “stamps” to large areas of “washes”, this technique has the ability to reveal and preserve the particularities of the gesture, therefore, involving the dimension of time. The silk paintings are dyed with textile dyes in a way that reveals the silk’s weave variations. The texture itself becomes in large part the subject of the work. In the current rice-paper series, again, I use textile dyes, which alter the color of the paper without obscuring any of its particularities.

A love of textiles and color, already very prevalent in the canvas pieces, were also the main drivers of KasuriHome, the business I created and ran from 2004 to 2018, based on re-purposing vintage Japanese textiles to create home furnishings. Its business model was based on commissions from architects and interior designers to create pieces for specific interior spaces such as homes and restaurants.

My career can be divided in two distinct periods, before and after KasuriHome. In the early period I had more of a public presence, such as shows in galleries and museums, fellowships, etc. The work I’m doing now, Pleats, hasn’t been shown in public venues.

contact: arocenacatalina@gmail.com