Katie Truk: Stretched Sculpture
Katie Truk wants to prove pantyhose are more than just a torture device for women. Truk is a multi-media artist who creates colorful, enchanting three-dimensional work with pantyhose, wire, a sewing needle and thread.
“My paintings of vague faces, taken from old snapshots, and made by weaving printed paper and jute into small squares that, when assembled into a grid on canvas, form the total image. Oil pastel, ink, and paint are rubbed or splattered onto the surface, further obscuring the subject and emphasizing the heavily textured physical properties of the object. The faces appear to be fading into the rugged surface, or perhaps emerging from it, and the identity of the subject is absorbed into the materiality. Open-ended questions about transience and the nature of being – of identity, mortality and time – are intrinsic to my work, and are posed as material in the form of a face – the original self – emerging in a sea of open possibilities.” – Hetty Baiz