Artist Spotlight: Katie Crown - Waterworks

Katie Crown, Impending Zoom, Watercolor and gouache, 32 x 37"

TAG Gallery is proud to present Waterworks, a series of works by Katie Crown. This series stretches what can be achieved with watercolor paint. You will not find traditional watercolors here. Seeing these mainly non-objective paintings provides direct sensory excitement. “I hope viewers feel like they’ve just gotten off a roller coaster. Watercolor works for this. I love the free feeling that watercolor allows, finding its own surprising, unexpected forms as it dries,” Crown says.

Katie Crown, Mountain Bubblebath, Watercolor and gouache, 47.5 x 49"

Using water-soluble pigments in non-traditional ways, the colors are intensely saturated and expressive. Crown juxtaposes patterns to build excitement, such as combinations of angular and circular shapes that deliver strong masculine and feminine energies. She sometimes puts her brushes away and sprays the paint to get a wild edge reminiscent of graffiti.

Katie Crown, Sedona Arizona, Watercolor and gouache, 31.5 x 38.75"

Crown is a native of Southern California. Some of her abstract watercolors, such as “Memory of the South Bay,” draw from her experiences growing up in Manhattan Beach in the 1950s and ‘60s. Some paintings in this show started out decades ago as landscapes and have now been reworked and enlarged into non-objective works that celebrate the art of painting. “Sometimes I add paper to expand my statement until the painting cries, ‘Mercy,’ she says. “I want my paintings to be visually exciting in and of themselves.”

Katie Crown, Memory of South Bay, Watercolor and gouache, 32.25 x 38.25"

The show runs through November 17.
Artist Talk: Saturday, November 10th, 3 PM