2 Abstract: Works of Katherine Treffinger and Frank Janzen
ab•stract (adj. ab strakt′, ab′strakt) 1. thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances: an abstract idea.
Satellite Gallery is please to announce it's final exhibition for the 2009 season. 2 Abstract brings the work of two celebrated regional artists to La Grande's downtown. Katherine Treffinger and Frank Janzen will be displaying their work beginning October 15th through November 20th.
Katherine's paintings and drawings (both abstract and figurative) are in collections across the U.S. and in Europe. She lives and works in "The Old Cove Store" in Cove.
Frank is a Tamarind Master Printer who is currently the resident master printer at Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts. Located at St. Andrew's Mission on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, he works with major and emerging artists to realize their work in the medium of printmaking.
Visuals (more soon)
Artist Statements
Katherine Treffinger
I always thought I would be exclusively a figurative artist. Abstraction happened upon me accidentally. I had been exploring it as a way to understand value, color and composition. Then I came across the work of master abstractionist Zao Wou Ki. Resonating deeply with it, my commitment to the art form strengthened.
Later, I had the privilege of working collaboratively with my friend Cindy Bilotti. We created a body of work, both abstract and figurative, of 13 large paintings.
We had 2 rules:
1) Don’t hesitate to paint over what the other person has painted and…
2) Express any and all impulses.
We worked together on the same painting at the same time. The collaboration was exhilarating and inspirational. That experience has influenced this body of solo work.
When working on this series I found myself going in and out of chaos, finding harmony and then purposefully sabotaging it … and then finding it again. This created a sense of history in each painting. It is through this aggressively worked, layered surface that I explore what paint can do.
-Katherine Treffinger
View more information aboout Katherine at
www.katherinetreffinger.com
www.katherinetreffinger.blogspot.com
Frank Janzen
Creating fused glass pieces and incorporating them into sculptural forms using metals and found objects may seem like a radical departure from my artwork as a printmaker and painter yet I treat it as painting color in glass. I have always been fascinated with colors and how they interact when they are placed together in some form or composition. Influences were seeing photographs in Life magazine when I was nine years old of Jackson Pollock doing his drip paintings, along with the works of Barnet Newman, Ellsworth Kelly, Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko with their vibrant colors. The images would instill an intense, visceral feeling in my solar plexus which still happens with me today when I pull a print that moves me or make those last few strokes on a painting that pull it together.
As to the sculptural forms, I have always been fascinated with found objects and the possibilities of creating something, especially with incorporating disparate materials. Steel, glass, paper and even natural found materials are all fodder for creating something unique.
I wouldn’t be doing glasswork if it hadn’t been for Tom Dimond, who suggested that I could do fused glass that looked like my paintings, and who allowed me to ‘play’ with his scraps of off-cuts in his studio. For one weekend it was a complete adrenaline rush of excitement as I used up most of his scraps and watched as the kiln was opened after the first firing. I wish to thank him for opening up the possibilities.
-Frank Janzen, TMP
Past Shows
View the various shows of the past. View slideshows, read about the artists, and get a sense of how we do things around here.