I am interested in how people make sense of the world. A huge part of this are ideas and values passed down from parents to children. Our parents teach us what is beautiful, good, worth striving for, worth preserving. And then the world changes.
My parents come from opposite ends of the country and raised me in the Midwest, a place with its own strong culture and point of view. Their ancestors came from opposite ends of the world and found their way in America, the country I was born in and love and call home. My artwork explores the way that parents try to pass on what they value to their children and grandchildren, the ways that kids both resist and inadvertently imbibe these lessons, and the ways that children seek to understand the world on their own terms. I am interested in what is similiar and different between cultures. I am interested in places and the way they imprint themselves on us. When an artist paints a landscape it is always an interpretation. For this reason art is as close as we get to seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.
In my professional life I am a scientist who studies the brains of very small creatures. Even flies try to make sense of their world and do so with tools and values pased down to them by generations of buggy things before them. What is really out there in the world and what is our poor limited brains trying to make sense of it all? Which ways of making sense of things are common to all brains and all creatures and which are unique to particular individuals?
I work in a variety of media including painting, drawing, printmaking, and fabric. My recent work often layers oil over an acylic underpainting, taking advantage of the loose abstraction of fast-drying acylic, and the soft edges and surface texture of oil. I often try to make images that teeter between realism and abstraction, between capturing “things as they are” and acknowledging that every piece of art is an abstraction conjured up by our brains. I am drawn to rich and contrasting textures, to lines that deftly state the essence of something. I like quick sketches made with obvious skill. I am inordinately fond of earth tones.
I am interested in how people make sense of the world, both through their own eyes, and through ideas and values passed down across generations. My artwork explores the way that children seek to understand the world on their own terms, the way that parents try to pass on what they value to their children and grandchildren, and the way our eyes and hands seek to capture what is beautiful in the world around us.
Every piece of art is both an observation and an interpretation. It is made of concrete materials and is also an abstraction and an idea. I love looking at art because it lets me see what the world looks like through someone else’s eyes.
I work in a variety of 2D media including painting, drawing, and printmaking. I am drawn to work that sits at an edge between realism and abstraction. I love contrasting textures, colors that capture the unique light of particular places, lines that deftly state the essence of something, quick sketches made with obvious skill. I am inordinately fond of earth tones
CV for Katherine Nagel
Email Artist: Katherine Nagel
Artist’s Website: katherinenagel.com
Substack: artobservances.substack.com