Katina Huston | Psychological Ballast

Katina Huston has been a constant presence in Bay Area Art for 30 years. Her exhibit Psychological Ballast examines stability and entropy in abstract terms for these disrupted times. Shadows return as a foundation, pressed against repeating patterns which simultaneously define and disintegrate the initial forms from nature. “I move objects on a page to figure out my life. This year it turned out that I held the stable center.”

Huston suspends objects from studio ceiling and casts light through them, building delicate and ephemeral forms from the resulting shadows. Grass, palm and pine plus toy boat are rendered in ink and acrylic that flows across the mylar. Meaty oil paints push through the lace of drawing in patterns of dot, stripe and plaid. Bicycles as a subject have linked Huston’s work to Duchamp and shadows to Warhol. But if you ask her, she would claim Ann Hamilton, Petah Coyne, Lee Bontecou and Annette Messager as sources.