Katherine Herian
This is Katrine Herian’s first major show in London. The exhibition is composed of a series of paintings which have evolved over the last two years.
Herian’s treatment of the surface and use of the grid structure demonstrate a knowledge and assimilation of the work of Robert Ryman and Agnes Martin. The structural basis of Herian’s work is arrived at intuitively and is articulated through layers of paint overlaid or abutted in contrasting directions. Almost always monochromatic, the paint may be thick or applied more thinly to achieve a quiet sensuality.
Light and shadow have a reciprocal relationship in these tonal compositions so that light caught across the surface of the painting can both reveal and efface the under- or overlying grid structure. This is an important facet of Herian’s work; its susceptibility to changes in time and space. In talking about her work Herian refers to a feeling of the ‘here and now’, to somehow gaining access to a physicality that the words can evoke. Although the works are rooted in material and factual happening, the vicissitudes that they are subject to somehow echo the impermanence of the viewer’s experience.