Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Insights from one of our artists, Ai-Wen Wu Kratz

"Color Logic /RYB" by Ai-Wen Wu Kratz, Acrylic on canvas, 7ft W by 5 ft.H

"Irina" by Ai-Wen,
 Concentrated crayon
and colored pencil on paper.
26in. W x 40 in. H
Being born with the proclivity for colors and forms that constitute the visual world, I find great happiness to be in a league of individuals that are committed to bring our invisible selves by way of our art to all others that are on different paths of life. Our contribution, jointly as artists, is to enrich others with our sensitivities, visual or spiritual, that are unique to us, by birth and/or by training.

'The Scream' of Edvard Munch; The letters of Van Gogh to his brother; The night walks along the hillside paths from the Skowhegan School Library back to the cottages; Wassily Kandinsky's first encounter with Monet's painting, "Haystack," that liberated in him the independent power of colors, line, shapes, planes and forms from subject matters; The paper, crayons, clipboard and I, myself, sketching by the roadside; The closing of an art critique session in late night, then to fetch a place for food, along the questionable turns amidst the NY City streets; The intense bond between the violin and Julia Fischer and her mastery over the instrument bringing forth miraculous music that reaches our souls; All have sustained a fire in me to act and to paint above womanhood and motherhood. The latter, interestingly enough, have enriched me and secured the basis of my confidence
in professionalism. 

It was said that a man, with his briefcase, religiously every day left his house through one door and entered the same house through another to his basement office to begin and end his daily office work.  With the same seriousness, I hope to share with you from time to time what I do in my studio.  It happens to be also in the basement of a house.  Invitingly, it is a space that is generously large, and is enhanced by the view of a lake. 

No comments: