Katia Santibañez: Endless Conversations

EARLY AND RECENT DRAWINGS & PRINTS

Anders Wahlstedt Fine Art presents Endless Conversations, an exhibition of drawings from 2012 to 2019, and other works on paper by Katia Santibañez. A catalog with a conversation between Santibañez and the Master Printer Mae Shore: the founder of Cheymore Gallery / Shore Publishing, will be published to accompany the exhibition. Shore and Santibañez have worked together since 2014.

Santibañez has, for many years, developed an interest in observation, creating a precious relationship between herself and various elements of nature. She is exploring the different forms of conversations between: her drawings and her prints, herself and master printers, herself and other artists, herself and the notion of colors. She was invited first in the winter of 2013 to be resident for two months at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and went back for the second time in October 2018. Since then, she has been engaged again with her oldest muse, trees.

This past year she has been greatly inspired by the book, “The Hidden Life of Trees,” by Peter Wohlleben, and developed a new body of pencil drawings titled Variation. She states, “The network of trees is one form rather than a group of individuals…The book explains how trees live with each other. They organize a real community and they help each other…In my recent drawings, each tree has a different shape and size. They embrace and touch each other.” This work is a departure from the rigid and organized grid which was mapping the structure of her earlier work exposing how sensitive one can be to their surroundings from the concrete to the clear air. During her stay at the residency, she took daily walks, observing the forest as they turned from their bright green of summer to gold copper crisp of fall.

Her drawings have a quiet sensitivity to them that reflects the artist’s relationship with nature and the world around her. From 1985-1990, Santibañez was working from branches, when a trip to San Francisco inspired her to start working from pine cones. These shapes developed into spirals which she has created into prints. From the organized grid to the organic lines, to the swirling distorted, Santibañez reflects upon the confusing world we live in today. Like chapters in a book, time passes, and Santibañez observes how her drawings and prints are communicating while still being autonomous. There is a real sense of intimacy when viewing this recent work and Santibañez approaches each drawing like its own personal interaction, opposed to one in a series of many. In this exhibition, Santibañez is leaving the door open, inviting the viewer to participate with her in endless conversation.

Katia Santibañez was born in 1964 in France and has lived in NYC since 1990. She was trained in Microbiology before getting her BFA from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. She has been in residence at Yaddo, NY; Casa Wabi, Mexico; The Albers Foundation, CT; Sitka, OR; and Civitella Ranieri, Italy. Her work has been collected internationally and is in both private and public collections including The Albright- Knox Art Gallery, The Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, and the Morgan Library and Museum. She is represented by DC Moore gallery, NYC and Texas gallery, Houston, TX. Santibañez spends her time between her studio in the Bronx and in the Berkshires of Massachusetts.