Katharine Schutta

My artistic practice is an exploration of beauty, dread, intimacy, fragility and transgression, often realized through processes of photography, collage and assemblage.

When I was a child, about th age of 11 or 12, my dream was to be a monk in a monastery, illuminating manuscripts. I imagined a simple cell, tiled floor, a wooden table, leaded window and a potted geranium.

Being sequestered in Coachhouse1, a far more magical cell, with diffused light coming through speckled and stained glass, matched and. mismatched tiles, twisted walls and staircase, with piles of newspapers, magazines, pencils, scissors, glue and my faithful scalpel, was something of a dream come true.

Here, I focused on Tender Disturbance(s), a series of collages, which I had begun earlier this year. I also had time and space to play with the newspaper and scotch tape transfers, drawing and watercolor.

I listened to early Renaissance polyphony, German ritual music from the 17th and 18th centuries, Einstürzende Neubauten—an experimental bank that was formed in the early 80s in Berlin, Arvo Part, Michelle Gurevich, Tanya Tucker, and the exquisite translation of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, and drank a lot of tea.

Tender Disturbance(s) is an on-going project, a series of visual poems, an attempt to express what we know but do not speak of. From time to time, my mom, who survived two years in a forced labor camp, would say to me “things are going so well, I hope nothing bad will happen.”

I would like to hear how and if they resonate with you, what you see, what is disturbing, beautiful, forbidden humorous or what else.