THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 1, 1996 TAG: 9602280154
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ERIC FEBER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines
MaryAnne Katz is going surreal.
The Chesapeake artist will unveil her first one-woman show in Virginia beginning Monday. It will be displayed at the Jewish Community Center in Norfolk through March.
The exhibit, called ``Kaleidoscope,'' will feature Katz' new direction in art: a colorful and surreal combination of watercolors and ink. Themes or subjects for her dozen new creations run the gamut from still lifes to several canvases celebrating her religious and cultural background.
Although this marks Katz' first one-woman show, she should be no stranger to this area.
Last year at the very successful ``Healing Arts'' exhibition, an innovative display of art at Chesapeake General Hospital created by cancer survivors, her colorful and humorous creation ``Le Coq,'' showing two blazingly colorful roosters, created quite a stir.
``It was amazing,'' the affable and charming Katz said about the reaction to her crowing roosters. ``People asked me what it means or how did I do it? It really generated quite a response.''
Katz is hoping her new exhibit will garner the same reaction. She said the 12 works on display at the JCC are a departure from her earlier art styles.
Past styles have included her ``Botanic Vicissitudes,'' a series of impressionistic paintings showing floral detail, and ``Perceptual Landscapes,'' another series of paintings depicting geometric and cubist abstract designs and landscapes.
``Those were rapid paintings,'' Katz said. ``I painted those in acrylics and simply put up a canvas and began to paint what was inside of me. Before I began each painting I would do a great deal of thinking and then just put the brush to the canvas and see where it took me. That's the mystery of art: The idea comes from within; it's intuition. I don't know how these will turn out.''
Katz' new style is not ``rapid art.''
She said her pen and ink watercolors come from designs and detailed drawings. Everything is carefully thought out and planned.
There's no serendipity here.
``These are not fast,'' she said. ``The ink work is tedious, and I use mechanical instruments like a ruler, compass and other objects to achieve my designs. This is a different outlook.''
Katz said the watercolor and its wash represents freedom while the pen and ink textures stand for detail.
``The two give balance to the painting,'' she said. ``They pose a challenge, and they fight each other.''
She said she does not know where the style came from.
``It just gripped me,'' she said. ``I got an idea. It came and it would not let go.''
Several of the paintings show off Katz' Jewish heritage: There's one with Moses holding the Commandments and facing the burning bush and another with a Hanukkah menorah (candelabrum) and a dreidel (children's top).
``It's just another way for me to create,'' she said. ``They explore my self. They are the things familiar to me. They are those things about my past. Everything I've created is a part of my past.''
Other designs feature still lifes of everyday household objects, and there's even one showing a couple of sand crabs.
The link to all of Katz' ``Kaleidoscope'' series are the bright colors that seem to jump out of the frame and the intricate geometric designs careening through each painting. Each one of her works is chock full of perfect circles, concentric circles, squares, straight lines, crisscross lines, ellipses, open curves and others giving each work a surreal kaleidoscope effect.
``I love color,'' she said. ``I've never been afraid of color. And the use of mechanics has augmented my creativity. I've been able to develop an aesthetic sense in spite of the mechanics and the use of the tools.''
She said she is heavily influenced by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), the Russian artist considered to be the first abstract painter. She said she was also greatly influenced by the late watercolorist James Kuo.
``I studied all of Kandinsky's works and read all of his treatises on color and design,'' she said. ``He was a master draftsman who also did wonderful drawings. James Kuo changed my life. He taught me how to think and so many other things, least of all watercolor techniques.''
The Buffalo, N.Y., native studied advertising design at the Albright Art School and computer graphics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She studied drawing and painting at the Academie Julienne and French at the Alliance Francaise, both in Paris, where she married her husband, David.
She holds a bachelor of science in fine art from Daemen College in Buffalo and earned a master of science degree in art education from Buffalo State College.
She taught art in Buffalo public schools from kindergarten to the 12th grade, was an adjunct professor at Buffalo State College and earned a Teacher-In-the-School Fellowship in the Buffalo school system.
``The Teacher-In-the-School fellowship was good for me,'' she said. ``I would set up my easel in a high school and then paint. Students would watch me and ask me questions about art, aesthetics and anything else pertaining to art. It was so thrilling to talk to these students.''
She has also been a freelance painter and illustrator, was art director at Herald Plastics in Kenmore, N.Y., and is a member of the Buffalo Society of Artists.
She has exhibited her works at galleries in New Jersey, New York state and Canada. She has had two one-woman shows in Buffalo and two in New Jersey.
Monday's opening at the JCC marks her first one-woman show in her new home of Virginia.
When she moved to Chesapeake, Katz said one of the first places she and her husband visited in the area was the JCC in Norfolk. There she got to talking with Jody Mazur, one of the center's directors. After talks with her Katz was able to secure a venue for her upcoming show.
``This is every exciting for me,'' she said. ``It's my first show here and will feature my new direction. I have put so much feeling into these new works.'' by CNB