We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Virginia Katz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Virginia below.
Virginia, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
For over 25 years, my creative life has centered on drawing and painting, which has been based on a life-long love of nature and landscape. I grew up in upstate NY in the Hudson River Valley, where my father worked as a forester at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He devoted himself to his own love of nature that, I believe, laid the foundation for what became a lifelong devotion to landscape and painting for me. As a young adult, I moved to Los Angeles and later settled in Orange County. What precedes most days in the studio are a few routines that inspire an open and energized frame of mind to work. I begin most days with a meditative, long walk and then some reading, followed by attending to my small plot of land of plants and fruit trees. I approach life each day attuned to the nuances of nature wherever I may be, including the parking lot area by my studio that has been the source of many works of art. There’s a close, vital connection that occurs between being open to the space around me and my art production. What comes alive from the interactions I experience, reappears in my paintings in various ways. The ever-changing cycles and conditions of sun, rain, wind, cold, heat, etc., and how those elements impact growth and decline become visible in my paintings through symbolism, media choices, and the installation of the work – all inspired by being fully present in the land. The richness of each day offers endless insight that feeds my creativity in thinking how to translate what I witness into painting.
Also important for me is contact with artists and art-world participants and having meaningful conversations. Usually on weekends, I visit art shows at galleries, academic settings, and museums to stay current with other artists’ thoughts and works. Meaningful conversations are a very important part of that. There was a time when I felt that serious dialog with artists wasn’t consistently available and so, in 2010, I began a 10-year long discussion series open and free to the public.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Coming from a desire to locate our connection in this world, my work has focused on the range between three-dimensional and intangible environmental space through various painting media.
This exploration extends among three, concurrent series of landscape paintings: Relief Paintings and their Intervention into environmental space, Mixed Media Monoprints, and Watercolors on facial tissues.
Underpinned by philosophical inquiries and choices of imagery, media, and technique, my emphasis is on our shared, entangled, and shifting relationship with the environment and our full participation in its cycles of decline and renewal – including metaphorical interpretations.
These various painting approaches to landscape reflect the multi-faceted nature of the environment itself and offer an opportunity to experience the landscape through the lens of painting.
Virginia Katz is a process-based, conceptual painter.
In July 2023, Katz concluded a solo exhibition at the Long Beach Museum of Art in Long Beach, CA. This Fall she will participate in The Getty Pacific Standard Time (PST) regional exhibition co-presented by Fulcrum Arts and Chapman University.
She has exhibited in several museums, art fairs including Spring Break, as well as, galleries and academic institutions in Los Angeles, New York and abroad. Her work is in the permanent collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Riverside Art Museum, and other public and private collections. She has participated in residencies in Europe and New York. Last September, she was a resident at Château de Beaurepaire, Loudun, France.
Her work has been reviewed in The Los Angeles Times, Art in America, and LA Weekly.
Virginia Katz lives in Irvine, California.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
My undergraduate study in Philosophy plays an important role in my artistic practice as well as, my study to complete my MFA at California State University, Long Beach, CA. Education was critical in my development as an artist.
All of my work is supported by conceptual inquiry which directs the methods I choose for each series of works. Artistic process, materials, technique, installation and titles are all integral to the work as a whole. My MFA also laid important groundwork for me through art historical study and the opportunity for frequent dialog and critical evaluation which in my opinion, was key to enriching my journey as an artist.
Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?
I would say that there are several contributing factors to overcoming challenges and developing skills to be successful: my upbringing and the sensitive exposure to nature my father imparted to me, what I gained from studying philosophy as an undergrad and my graduate work in fine art, and the friendships and relationships I now maintain among artists and art-world participants all provide me the essential skills, qualities, and knowledge I need to be successful.
In the midst of periodic disappointment, I remind myself of what is most important and meaningful to me and I return to – the landscape, which is my greatest source of comfort and inspiration. My interest and training in Philosophy, and completing my MFA, add a level of self-imposed criticism to my work processes. Staying in touch with artists and art-involved people brings engagement and support to my work.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.virginiakatz.com
- Instagram: virginia_katz_
- Facebook: Virginia Katz
- Other: threads: virginia_katz_
Image Credits
Photography: Gene Ogami Dylan Logas
