Impulses and Obstacles, Kathleen Sherin

Wild Knot

Stop by Pausa Art House to enjoy a wine tasting or concert while viewing the striking work of Kathleen Sherin. I recall being immediately charmed by her prints while touring her workspace at Buffalo Arts Studio a few years back. The one-of-a-kind, hand-printed works on paper favor biomorphic forms using methods that blend traditional painting, printmaking, and collage processes to combine and recombine an array of textural organic imagery. A passage found in the text on her website reveals a bit about the artist’s practice: “A trained nurse, I visualize people as walking amalgamations of diagrammatic systems; as biological beings. This perspective expresses through my art. My mother has dementia and I try to imagine living in a world without the anchoring reference of time. Her experience influences my art. A large spider residing on the other side of my kitchen window resonates with my compositions. Forces entwined: each affecting, becomes an effect.”

Sherin’s appealing abstract compositions of line, spot and tangled loops often include horizontal lines that suggest land or water views. While the knotted line that we refer to as a scribble may be associated with mark making that is out of control, childish, or sloppy, Sherin’s calligraphic loops are expressive rather than random—sometimes they represent actual characters of the alphabet. The humble loopy circular line is primal, often a child’s first gesture with a crayon. Full of energy and potential, the use of the scribble in drawing can be a most meaningful play of form, as well as a telling assessment used clinically by art therapists. Each print series is differentiated with an instructive title, such as Border, Synergy, Water Zones, Dark Slices, and ABC—XYZ. Individual works seem to bubble forth with personal narrative. Reminiscent of the minimal monochromatic works of Brice Marden, she has arrived at a practice of experimentation and discovery that appears to be distinctly her own.The exhibition will remain on view at Pausa Art House through December 20th Additional work by Kathleen Sherin may also be seen in Wellspring, a concurrent exhibition at Indigo Art.