DC Moore Gallery is pleased to present And Yet Again, a solo exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Katia Santibañez.
The visual impact of Santibañez’s abstract paintings is immediate, felt simultaneously in the vibrant color combinations on the canvas and also in the intensity of the repeated forms throughout each work. These new paintings mark the artist’s continuing exploration of structure and order within the framework of the grid, which first appeared in her paintings in 2007.
The internal logic and thoughtful decision making inherent to Santibañez’s practice is profound in today’s world that moves at warp speed, with endless information available in seconds at the touch of a button. The steady and precise progression of this work requires the artist’s patience and focus, and in turn asks that of the viewer, not only to look, but to intentionally see.
Santibañez’s work begins with the careful construction of a geometric matrix. This matrix becomes the structural basis for each composition, and establishes the size of each square within, sometimes as small as half of an inch. Within each diminutive square, Santibañez carefully paints a repeated motif, which she refers to as a “spiral” or “pinwheel.” The curling abstract form is embedded within each section of the grid, its circular form animating the canvas with a recurring feeling of motion. Santibañez’s conception of the spiral is inspired by the natural world and organically occurring circular forms, like snail shells, growth rings in trees, flowers, and vine tendrils.
The dichotomy between repetition and differentiation is at the core of this new body of work. Santibañez changes and shifts the sequencing and selection of color in each segment to animate color vibrations and geometric patterning. The exhibition’s title, And Yet Again, speaks to the consistent nature of the artist’s methodology and the cycles of life, time, and nature’s processes, which repeat but are never the same. Her process meditates on the balance of order and disorder within the world, whether political, environmental, or psychological, generating complexity, perception and meaning.
Santibañez encourages viewers to look deeply at the surface of her paintings and seek out the variations. The all-over compositions draw the viewer in to start where they will, and continue through the painting as if lost in a field or garden. Every painting is filled with innumerable decisions, beautiful and seductive, moving with color and animating a rigid structure.
Katia Santibañez is an American artist, born in France. She studied painting at Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts. She has been in residencies at Yaddo, NY; Casa Wabi, Mexico; The Albers Foundation, CT; Sitka Center, OR; and Civitella Ranieri, Italy. Her work has been collected internationally and is in both private and public collections including the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, NY; The Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, France; The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; The Morgan Library and Museum; The Museum of Modern Art; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. The artist lives and works in Otis, Massachusetts and New York City.