Virginia Katz Collaborating With The Wind

May 7, 2019

We are proud to announce that we have several new pieces from Virginia Katz added to the Escalette Collection. Katz is a California based artist who received her MFA at California State Long Beach. She has had many solo and group exhibitions and her work has received many great reviews. In Fall 2018, her work was featured here in the Guggenheim Gallery in A Matter of Course .

She bases her art on the earthly processes that embolden her. Her work has an underlying theme of nature.

She says,

“Using systems and materials that are closely related to the content of the work, I have investigated a variety of natural phenomena underpinned with an awareness of the laws of physics and philosophical inquiries.”

Katz spends a lot of time outside and uses the forces of nature to inspire or add new techniques to her work. She records the activities of nature, such as charting tides. She has connected with nature since she was a child. Growing up in upstate New York, she learned about the world around her from her father, a landscape architect.

The pieces in our collection come from Katz’ project entitled, “Wind” (2000-2009). Katz uses the wind to create her work. She tied strings to tree branches and attached pens to the end of those strings. She allowed the wind to move the pens and mark the paper. She recorded wind events in Southern California. One is called Santa Ana Conditions, or Off-shore Flows, in which the wind came inland and was hot and dry. The other is called On-shore Flows, come from the Pacific and create high winds on the coast. Katz spent hours to create these pieces. She calls it “collaborating with the wind.”