Catherine Czacki

Lives and works in New Mexico, USA

Artist statement

I work across genres and mediums: painting, ceramics, metal work, sound, eco resin, paper mache and found objects. Recent paintings are based on how archival research interacts with daily life, the everyday rendered strange, what I sometimes refer to as eccentric realism. Painting images are gathered from analog and digital sources past and present, from friends, archives, the garden. An everywhere is center ethos against considering one place, city, or geography as better than another. My sculptural work reconfigures found objects, sewing scraps and assembled wood into small personal monuments. The ongoing series of protective ceramics are influenced by research into the global movement of evil eye traditions that intersect with my family history, an overlapping theme in the paintings as well. In exhibition, individual objects come together as improvisational constellations based on themes encountered during the time period of their making, accompanied by poetry that describes an enchanted rather than taxonomic approach to material.

Artwork