ARTIST STATEMENT
Nemanich’s marks and lines in these works draw from two main influences or areas of lifelong study—music and calligraphy. As a musician, her strong personal connection to musical rhythms and gestures drives much of her mark making, as does her study of original hand-drawn musical scores and notation. Her years of study of calligraphy and its forms and her research on the universality of calligraphic forms in all cultures, all inspire her marks and lines. These marks and connections are integrated within the sculptural and two-dimensional works presented here. Working with various thicknesses of wire, she draws with the wire itself, often guided by gestures in music she listens to. The wire becomes the drawn line. Interspersed within the wire lines, she places calligraphic marks on transparent film or layered paper, the two or three components becoming one gestural drawn and formed physical sculpture. Nemanich takes her hand drawn lines and gestural marks, elements used in writing of every kind in every culture and language, and transforms these marks into a physical, experiential reality in order to communicate a new way of seeing, experiencing, and thinking about hand drawn marks. Her work presented here connects to universal calligraphic marks. “Enchanted Wood” also connects to nature in which we all are one. In “Layers in Time”, the connections include stitching the calligraphic papers with thread saved from her immigrant seamstress grandmother’s collection, and using the drop cloth from her own studio.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Chicago area artist Katherine Nemanich uses marks driven by her longstanding work with calligraphy and by her lifelong study and love of music. As a harpsichordist and pianist, music is integral to her life and to her art. She listens keenly to many kinds of music, especially jazz and classical, and keeps notebooks of particular works or passages that she finds especially conducive to translating into visual marks. The phrasing, gestures, rhythm, and emotional feeling in the music are the source for many of her gestural ink marks as well as her drawings with wire. Visuals of hand drawn musical scores, with the energy of the notations and markings depicting the energy of the music also inspire her painted ink markings and her wire configurations. Katherine Nemanich, an alumnus of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois Chicago, College of Architecture and Art, has exhibited in Chicago and Midwestern area solo and group shows and galleries including Rockford Art Museum Biennial 2022-2023, Hyde Park Art Center, Bridgeport Art Center, Governors State University, College of Lake County, Northern Illinois University, ARC Gallery, Riverside Art Center, Woman Made Gallery, Hairpin Arts Center, Beverly Arts Center, Koehnline Museum, and Noyes Cultural Arts Center.
© Katherine Nemanich