Allison Katz
AKgraph (Primate), 2015
Acrylic on canvas
200 x 160 cm
‘Painting is a conversation’ Allison Katz once said in an interview with the White Review (2015). She continued: ‘I think of something I just read, a 1987 interview with Francesco Clemente, in which he says, “Art is the last oral tradition alive in the West; it is the only sort of oral tradition that is not lost.” I completely agree.’
This rings true for an artist who often includes words, letters and puns in her paintings of figures and animals. Katz’s paintings explore expression, selfhood, identity and the voice.
In AKgraph (Primate), the face has a mouth shaped as an Aand her signed initials form the eyes. Her own name has also often recurred across faces in other paintings: ALL and IS for eyes and the letters ON shaping the mouth. This call for action –– ‘all is on’ –– shows her fascination with naming and how small changes in language can shift meanings when seen singularly or in relation to other things.
The portrait in the foreground of AKgraph similarly has to be read in relation to the many quickly rendered headless naked bodies that make up the background. The sharp angle of the A gives the figure an amazed expression, whilst the shape itself forms a sound as if gasping out in surprise.
Allison Katz has her first UK institutional solo exhibition, from 22 May to 31 October 2021 at Nottingham Contemporary.