Works on Paper | Katherine Makowsky

Katherine Makowsky is an artist and illustrator born and raised in Waco, TX. She graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts concentrating in printmaking. Her greatest source of inspiration is natural forms and relationships such as plants, landscapes, celestial bodies, textures, patterns, cycles, growth, and decay. Although trained as a printmaker, her artistic influences derive from a wide variety of mediums, from bookmaking and ceramics to textiles and comic books, and even beyond the plastic arts, such as music and literature. Her work seeks to uphold the classical ideals of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty.

Artist Statement:

Although many kinds of landscapes are beautiful and interesting, paths pose a unique visual problem. Cutting through a landscape, they both divide and unite the surrounding space. They provide a built-in structure and focal point. They create a sense of movement that can be elegant or abrupt, changing the pace of a drawing. For this series, paths provided me with a starting point from which to explore a variety of visual problems, including texture, value, and negative and positive space.The landscapes in this series straddle the line between abstraction and realism. I use whatever mark-making technique will serve me best, rather than trying to make my approach uniform throughout a drawing or throughout the series. My drawing method alternates between the spontaneous, the repetitive, and the deliberate. Eraser marks, smudges, and mistakes often remain in a drawing, contributing to the mood of the picture.Intuition plays a large part in my creative process. I begin most pieces without a clear goal in mind, and stop working on them when they feel complete. Symbols or associations may be included that are left for the viewer to interpret, as in a poem.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website