Einayim LaMishpat 8, Nachlaot, Jerusalem
Open on Fridays from 10:00 to 14:00
or by appointment in advance
Asia KATZ
PAINTING
Do you want to feel warm in your house?
Then, I would advise you to put a picture on a wall. Yes, a certain picture. One that contains a sunny ochre. One which soft, slightly rough surface does not resist, but absorb light and afterwards returns it from within, from the very colour. And a woman will be the main image of this picture, as there is no house without a woman. This picture reminds us of a soft patchwork quilt and a nice beautiful craftwork of handy women who manage to turn their most modest dwellings into a childish dream. It reminds of a link with one's land and race, with one's tradition. And there will be nothing invented or declarative in this linkage.
In works of Asya Katz, who was born in Bulgaria in the family of handy women and needlewomen, the motives of Balkan people appear spontaneously like breathing. The most profound, genetically incorporated in the visual language of the artist, they could not be deafened by many years of life spent in Israel.
Her favourite symbols are balloons, flying umbrellas, the wind itself, motion, birds... The very tissue of her works is light and translucent. It is light, but never simple, not curt. Asya combines capabilities of dry needle, watercolour, pastel, coloured pencils and even tea. All her works are accomplished on a watercolour paper. They produce a uniquely abundant, live surface upon which all elements are light as breathing, be it ornamental structures or figurative details. Asya's works do not contain a merely smooth background. Each background is a certain space where one can notice permanent motion, where new and new worlds are born.
The works by Asya Katz could be called decorative as if not for their philosophic intension, for abundance of delicate tinges and semi-colours, for diversity of compositions. These are, possibly, main secrets of their attractiveness. Her paintings reveal gradually for us, from the simplest superficial perception of a good-looking object of interiour to intensive visual exploration, to discovery of their
philosophic depths.
An extract from the article by Lika Brahovskaya on creative work of Asya Katz.