Kiss Me
Katrin Jurati
May 2nd - June 7th, 2009
Fifth Floor Gallery is pleased to present Kiss Me, an exhibition of work by the L.A. based artist, Katrin Jurati. The show will feature an installation of numerous pieces of hand-painted fabrics, which will soar and billow throughout the exhibition space of the gallery. Jurati has focused on using paint, dye and marker on silk habotai, chiffon, satin, cotton, and velvet during the last five of her twenty years as an artist.
Born in the Black Forest and being half German and half Persian, Jurati tells tall tales, many of which are fodder for the cartoony and idiosyncratic images which festoon her paintings; these might just as easily be cheerful as depressing. Stories of personal emotion and passion as well as those culled from the public, combine with the political to create a roomful of conversations which float about lightly in the space, while at the same time weighing heavily in the mind. The stories, drawn from the public consciousness, flirt with ideas of cultural identification, exposure, and erasure. The content of her paintings versus the material choices of silks and soft fabrics also juxtaposes perceptions of the public and private with their imagery cut against the method of presentation as these narratives become displayed, in a way, as signage. The fabrics also flow in a reciprocal motion as one’s body moves around them, further enhancing Jurati’s intention that her work have a sensual relationship to the skin and a feeling of cocooning the body from a distance. Her inspirations are varied; philosophy, history, all things fabric, cave painting, feng shui and the stories which invariably follow, all play their part.
Katrin Jurati was born in Germany, grew up in Buffalo, and byway of NYC, now lives and works in L.A. Her work has been shown at numerous galleries, and museums in Los Angeles and New York, as well as in Europe. She was most recently exhibited in the A.N. Bush Gallery of the Salem Art Association in Portland, Oregon. Her work resides in various public, museum and private collections including those of Creative Artists Agency and Diana Zlotnick. Jurati received a BS from Buffalo State in 1989 and a MFA from CalArts in 2002.