KATHERINE AUCHTERLONIE: KISS GARDEN
Ross + Kramer announces Kiss Garden, Katherine Auchterlonie’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery. Auchterlonie’s work is heavily rooted in her study of systems of notation and symbology—namely, that of the symbol of “X”.
July 18 – August 16, 2024
Throughout her practice, the X is considered across its many identities and dimensions. In Kiss Garden Auchterlonie focuses specifically on the identity of X as the kiss. In embarking on this body of work, Auchterlonie developed her own organic abstract notation system through a synthesis of “plein air” impressionistic sketches and scientific reference material such as medical illustrations, dance notations, mathematical characters,and prehistoric symbols.
This system is employed throughout her paintings, much like an alphabet, to transmute layered experiences from an omniscient point of view. For the artist, abstraction is fundamental to the success of this system in communicating such emotional and physical complexities. Both color and materiality play a crucial role as well.
Coupled with Auchterlonie’s delicate, subdued palette, her use of leather, quilt liner, and other unconventional materials as foundations for her paintings provide a sense of atmosphere and tactility, eliciting physical sensations that help to frame the chosen narratives.
Drawing on the principles of baroque dance notations such as the Beauchamp–Feuillet notation, Auchterlonie’s fluid, airy compositions communicate sequences of events across varying lengths of space and time. By utilizing her notation system in this manner, the artist seeks to investigate the expression and experience of duration and how it relates to memory.
This can be readily seen in works such as her monochromatic Night Sequence II series, where physical movements and sensations appear chronologically mapped out through the artist’s distinct calligraphic abstraction across six separate canvases that span three walls of the gallery’s rear viewing room.
Moreover, with the symbol of X as a guiding force, Auchterlonie’s work explores the ways in which naturally occurring antithetical states such as light and dark, wet and dry, soft and hard, recontextualize and inform the human experience. As a whole, this body of work exists as illustrated nexuses of human interaction and perception that, while often born from personal observation and experiences, are amenable to the imagination of their audience.