We are happy to be hosting Katrina Whitney in May.

Her art contains relics of the past within a menagerie of animals, apparitions, and objects which capture the nostalgia of her formative experiences.  Collage is not often a medium associated with minimalism, but she finds herself drawn to this aesthetic and tries to avoid the typical busy and sentimental pitfalls.  The space that is left when she is finished with a piece is just as important as the spaces she has filled.  Whether the content is kitschy and humorous, or somber and serious, it is her approach and techniques that give the work continuity.  The treatments, paint colors, and found imagery may have an antique appeal, but the compositions are decidedly simple, clean and modern.

Katrina has lived in Seattle since 1993 and currently resides in Ballard.  You can contact her at katrina@katrinawhitney.com or look at her art on www.katrinawhitney.com.

Our April Art Walk guest is Leslie Nan Moon who was recently published in Somerset Magazine and in 425 soon.

I was born in 1972 in Philadelphia, PA.  Always surrounded by art from a young age with my mother’s sculptures and father’s photography.  My appreciation and need for art continued through my teenage years and ultimately brought me to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.  It was there I received a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking and Book Arts.

After graduating college in 1994 I was drawn to the beauty and culture of the Pacific Northwest.  Soon after arriving in Seattle I had several group art shows in various galleries in Seattle’s Pioneer Square District.

Time passes and life changes and after a 6 year semi-hiatus from art to raise my twins (my son Trevor has Autism) alongside my husband Scott, I returned to my other passion, printmaking.   My work has been shown in numerous cafes and salons in the Seattle/Bellevue area as well as at Pratt Fine Arts Center and Kirkland Arts Center.

I’ve recently been working on a series of linocuts from Alice in Wonderland and also the Wizard of Oz.  Additionally, I’ve been working on mixed media pieces incorporating my linocuts with drawings and encaustic paintings.

As a parent of a child with Autism, Alice in Wonderland has an even deeper hold on me.  It is said that Lewis Carroll himself was on the Autism Spectrum which would help explain the wonderful nonsense content of the story.  Watching my son navigate through the world is a little like watching Alice.  Sometimes he fits, sometimes he doesn’t.  Sometimes he understands what others are saying and other times it makes no sense at all.  Either way, I will be by his side, walking through Wonderland together.

From Philadelphia to Seattle to Wonderland and Oz…my art takes me places.

We are featuring the work of Michael Edward McGovern and his wife Roxanne McGovern.

Artist Statements

The environments and people that have surrounded my life inform the art I create. My work is about constructing autobiographical images that explore the ghosts and spirits of my past.  I am interested in how both personal and cultural histories have profoundly affected my visual language.

I compose memorials to the intangible memories of my past.  By visually recording impressions of specific times, places, and events in my life I am preserving memories that seem to fade with each passing year.

My work calls upon the repetitive nature of printmaking and photography to create a network of reoccurring images that I can meditate on to help search for a truth.  I use a lexicon of images that relate to specific events in my history.  Repeated images of bridges, birds, trains, war, masks, urban landscapes, and old family portraits find their way into my work lending themselves to an unfolding narrative.  All these images carry a personal biography, but also carry the weight of their own metaphors helping to furnish an ever-growing personal narrative.

Michael Edward McGovern 2010

Two years ago I read a book titled Black Dog of Fate by Peter Balakian.  It is a coming of age memoir about growing up as a fourth generation Armenian in America.   Balakian did not really know anything about his family history until he became an adult and began to do his own research. Through his research he discovered his families involvement in the Armenian genocide and how and why they immigrated to America.  His family never spoke of their past, and Balakian had to piece his own history together.

For years I have been making work about issues surrounding my family, but it was this book that inspired me to go in the direction I am now.  I cannot imagine growing up in a family that never shared their history with the younger generations.  I grew up in an Armenian family who talked incessantly about our past and our legacy.  I have dug deeper into that history and focused on my Babi Jan (grandfather).  My recent work is about him and how his survival of war and genocide has helped shape our family, and more specifically, who I have become.

Roxanne McGovern 2010

Barbara W. Solomon

This month’s artist is Deborah Berg who’s abstract paintings are full of texture and life.   

Artist’s Statement:

Art is a journey with no destination.  It’s where I can take adventures, lose myself in the voyage, and at the same time, find a way back home to the rain.  In this swollen world full of a complex way of life, I strive for simplicity and tranquility to balance it all out.  I crave the type of ease that comes from the act of frosting a cake– with nothing between the icing and the knife except texture, color, and pattern.  And just like frosting a cake, I layer the paint, creating peaks that stand on their own feet and colors that speak their own language. 

Deborah Berg

A  longtime friend and guest of Gary’s, we are thrilled to have someone from our “family” presenting at the salon. 

Check out her work through November in the salon or online at www.mistinguettshowgirls.com.