Katherine Wagner’s Dad in the 90’s (a painting in our Otherworldliness show), is a synthesis of past and present.  A piece of found material supplies a foundational structure, an armature for a meditation on past experiences.  Inspired by textile and its ability to conjure the past, through palette and pattern, Wagner searches for fabrics that connect with an aspect of familiar associations. Using the found rhythms and structures within the textile, Wagner composes her own rhythm, adding shapes, colors, and disruptions, stitching pieces together, creating a wholly new composition. This piece speaks to a memory of a pair of swim trunks owned by her father back in the day- a cause for embarrassment at the time.  This piece seems to connect with that memory in a way that is more emboldened, an act of looking back on this aesthetic decision as a noteworthy moment in an inherited visual vocabulary.

by Amanda Joy Brown