Katrina Lasko at work in her studio
...broad, quick, sloppy, emotionally charged techniques
Signpost featured artist of the month: Katrina Lasko
Katrina Lasko pushes the edges
—BEN FORGEY
When last we checked in on Katrina Lasko, she was well-dressed,
the proprietress of a cozy but cutting edge, eponymous gallery in
a quiet old adobe along the road to Llanito in Bernalillo. These
days, she has repaired to the desert hills with far-off views of
Santa Ana mesa and Cabezon with her husband and fellow artist and
gallerist, Alvaro Enciso. They make art together there in makeshift
spaces. Alvaro covers the stony, juniper yard with cairn piles and
phallic symbols while Katrina takes over half of the library, spattering
plaster and paint onto the floor. It seems like a pit stop for a
restless couple or the birth of one of those legendary collector-artist
refuges. It could go either way. Perhaps they will retire to San
Miguel de Allende, Mexico, or maybe they can be urged to grace and
challenge artists and art lovers in the Bernalillo area with another
gallery.
Katrina is now preparing work for two new shows this March. A
solo show at the Harwood Arts Center is entitled “Wrapped,
Tied, Glued” and will run from March 9 to 28 with the reception
on Friday, March 23 from 5:00 to 8:30 p.m. The show will feature
her more abstract and minimalist work, both old and new, through
which she plays with totem forms and her trademark use of surprising
and sensuous materials. As her title alludes, she covers objects
in various simple and uncraftsman-like ways, tiling, for example,
a four-by-four post with squares of bicycle inner tubes. It invites
us to compare the look and the feel of rubber, say, with lead or
felt—some of her other materials. The work also, it seems,
exposes Katrina’s fascination with certain forms and patterns,
the square and the square cross being two. Minimalism like this
seems to somehow convey a sense of spirituality and at the same
time a sort of mathematical obsession. Its quietness and simplicity,
however, can come across as a little dull. Katrina’s expressive
application of paint (when used) and the textures and patinas of
her material save the work from being overlooked.
Expressionism—the broad, quick, sloppy, emotionally charged
techniques—forms the backbone of Katrina’s figurative
work which she will showcase at a new gallery in an old space this
month on Central. Matrix Fine Art has taken over what used to be
Coleman Contemporary Art Gallery just east of most of the shops
in Nob Hill. In their inaugural group show, ‘Overtures’,
Katrina will exhibit a group of seven plaster torsos she had originally
conceived as “the Seven Deadly Sins,” but backed off
from that as the work lead her down another path.
She spread a thick plaster paste over the ladies as I asked her
to reflect on the five years of running The Katrina Lasko Gallery.
“I thought for sure it would be something to fulfill a kind
of need...maybe not a need...in the community for seeing contemporary
art. But in the end, the support was just not there and it was too
much work. People don’t realize how much time it takes just
to go out to see new work and find new artists, [like at] open studios
at the Harwood and Masters shows at the university. If you want
to show fresh things, you have to go out and look at young artists.
I had hoped that they could inspire the older artists in the area
to keep creating new things, pushing themselves to do something
different and in that respect, I think I was successful. I tried
to show things that were at least not boring to me. After a while
when you go to the galleries in Santa Fe everything looks the same.
Everything is something calligraphic on canvas, and then put wax
on it and call it “encaustic.”
Alvaro wandered in and listened and then said, “A lot of
people did not see the importance of our galleries. They failed
to understand that an art gallery brings a lot more to a community
than just a shop. It is a space and a place that pushes the edges
of our visual and cultural understanding of ourselves. In retrospect,
maybe the time was not right. And we made a lot of mistakes, too.”
We let the soothing sounds of Katrina spreading plaster take over
the silence in the wake of Alvaro’s words. I immersed myself
in thoughts about the wealth and wholeness that art brings to those
who make it, those who show it, and those who live with it.
• “Wrapped, Tied, Glued” will run March 9-28
at the Harwood Art Center, 1114 7th NW, Albuquerque. The reception
will be March 23 from 5:00-8:30 p.m.
• “Overtures” will run March 2-31 at Matrix Fine
Art, 3812 Central Ave. SE, Albuquerque. The reception will be March
2 from 5:00-8:00 p.m.
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