Advisor: Jason Paradis

Stray

Stray
2020-21
Site specific installation of mixed media visual poetry paintings, 10 x 8 inches each
Dimension variable
Installation approx. 34 x 338 inches

Artist Statement

My artistic practice extending across various forms and media is tightly bound to my unique perception and complex relationship with my surroundings. Interpreting visual and non-visual concepts, I seek the direct reflection at a specific point in the space-time continuum of both endogenous and exogenous notions that are instantaneous, unmediated, and non-replicable. Such a point, or “the perfect moment,” begins with my complete, willing openness to the universe, culminates at the unity of inspiration and idea, and is manifested in the physicality of the making. Walking the line between deliberation and spontaneity, I study the physical and chemical properties of materials, experiment with incompatible mixtures, embrace accidents and random chances, and always marvel at marks making themselves on the substrate as I follow through with my plans. Through the competition and collaboration between mind, hand, and materials, the magic of serendipity is retained and perpetuated by a series of scientific approaches.

More about the artist: katiex.art

Project Description

Tagore’s Stray Birds is a poetry collection of over 300 short verses contemplating some of the most universal concepts, such as life and death, joy and sorrow, infant curiosity and elderly wisdom, through nature, love and spirituality. It is one of the most influential works in modern Chinese poetry but is far less well-known among western countries than his Nobel Prize-winning Gitanjali. As my first English book and first modern poetry book, Stray Birds introduced me, at the age of 13, to a new territory of free expression and the simple beauty of the English language. It completely changed my perspective toward life, the world and everything.

My “Stray” series is a collection of small “visual poetry” paintings, each referencing one of the short verses from Tagore’s Stray Birds. The title “Stray” indicates both a state of lostness and a sense of freedom, which are the two major concepts of this project. The entire installation maps out a world, immense and diverse, to explore freely and get lost in. When examined closer, each individual painting becomes a portal to a fragment of thought, intimate and personal for each viewer.

In this project, the selected verses are first reduced to concepts and then interpreted as visual reflections of my mental state and reactions to the verses at the moment of creation, evident with the various marks, colors, materials and processes. While maintaining an instantaneous and unmediated approach, which is the central idea of my practice, I explore unconventional visual / sensuous / conceptual relations and experiment with novel material interactions. Before creating each piece, a verse is selected and meditated upon until a vision appears, and then the creation begins – plans are made, processes are devised, colors are mixed, substrates are chosen and prepared accordingly. As I follow through with my plans, I observe with wonder and awe a small world materializing under my hands. In the end, each piece becomes a physical object representing an idea about the world around us, both minuscule and cosmical.

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