“I loved Concordia. The school gave me everything I needed; it encouraged my hunger and gave me confidence.”
Doodles morph into eyes, pears become noses, gaping mouths frame faces and figures.
Allison Katz links text and image and visual puns that upend clichés to “make the invisible visible.”
Primarily a painter, the London-based Katz draws on philosophy, literature, poetry and history. Her paintings, ceramics, installations and posters include recurring motifs — giant roosters, cabbages, monkeys — wittily juxtaposed.
“Painting is always a challenge because it raises existential questions,” says Katz, who also has an MFA from Columbia University (New York).
Katz’s exhibition Artery, her first institutional solo show in the U.K, is showing from May to October 2021 at Nottingham Contemporary, followed by Camden Art Center, London, from January to March 2022. It comes on the heels of significant solo exhibitions worldwide, including Paris, Boston, Freiburg, Warsaw, New York, São Paulo and Shanghai.
The Concordia factor
“I loved Concordia. The school gave me everything I needed; it encouraged my hunger and gave me confidence. The school had a tremendous amount of respect for students. Art school felt like it was part of life. Crucially, this was the most important thing to learn — that an institution cannot teach you how to be an artist.”
Inspiring instructor
“Each was memorable because they were all artists, and each lived that truth differently. I paid attention to the fact they were artists first. Leopold Plotek, Michèle Delisle, Janet Werner, David Elliot and François Morelli stand out. But just as influential to me were my peers, who taught and inspired me in direct, uncompromising ways — that is why the experience was so profound.”
Fond student memory
“Going to Italy with (instructor) Michèle Delisle on a summer drawing course in 2000. It was life changing to be in a place so visually sensual that there was no point in trying to match it; one had to find another way. I continued travelling by myself, something I can barely believe I did without a smartphone. It was during the Pope’s Jubilee year, and I pretended to be a pilgrim to gain access to churches to sketch the altarpieces.”
Words of wisdom
A Samurai mantra: I will make my mind my friend.