2023 | Allison Katz

Katz was born and grew up in Montreal and while studying at Concordia University she was deeply influenced by one of her mentors, the painter Susannah Phillips, for whom she modelled for a period of eight years. Through this relationship and the abstracted interpretation of herself, Katz’s eyes were opened to the act of looking, specifically through the gaze of another woman, and the opportunity to represent reality indirectly. Following these formative years in Canada, Katz’s journey saw her go on to complete an MFA at Columbia University in New York and lived there until her 2013 move to London, UK, where she began to hone a multifaceted approach to her practice.

In her paintings, Katz refreshingly interrogates the expectations of narrative representation, implicating contradictions and overlapping imagery that help to disrupt the idea of painting as an illusion of reality. She often refers to specific literary quotes and historical paintings, exploiting wordplay or exploring alternate ways of perceiving a particular object or existing composition. Her paintings range tremendously in terms of style and imagery. Certain devices, references, echoes, and chains of meaning introduce a holistic spirit. For example, Katz makes use of the repetition of certain subjects—cabbages, roosters, mouths, fairies, roads, and noses—to name a few. These symbols can be seen framing or partnering each other, blended as if the canvas has been double exposed, balanced by a lingering profile, or embellished by one of Katz’s puns on her own name. A keen interest in the notion of self-portraiture, the artist’s touch and the myth of the painter, sees Katz deconstructing and including elements of ‘Allison Katz’, her nickname, or initials, to upend the traditional value-appeal of a signature, unequivocally offering a brazen connection with the maker.

Katz not only challenges familiar distinctions between painterly categories, but she also introduces materials such as rice and sand to puncture the slickness of the oil. She describes her intent here as generative, in that these ‘irritants’ introduce the texture of life by breaking down the illusory effect of painting. Her choice of materials also expands upon already existing word plays and readings—the grains of rice speak to pecking orders, cycles of feeding and life, the vast emptiness that nonetheless holds all the countless elements of the universe. By extension, Katz infers that the act of looking is an act of refreshment, that artworks are both of a time and timeless. Every gaze, even by the same individual, reaps a different experience and set of understandings depending on the references brought to that moment of encounter.

For Katz, each exhibition is a performance—an opportunity to create a new set of paintings and compose a hang that invites fresh interpretations. The location, space and walls are integral to her process. She explores the museum’s archives, collection, responds to the physicality of the gallery and sometimes introduces an architectural structure to further amplify the interdependence of the paintings to one another and the frame that holds them. That the Gershon Iskowitz Prize includes an exhibition at the AGO would allow Canadian viewers to experience this dynamic approach firsthand, as Katz tailors her presentation to engage with the specific characteristics of the gallery. This will not only highlight her innovative methods but also deepen the connection between her art and her Canadian audience.

November Paynter