Kathy Sosa Paintings and Prints

Los Religiosos On My Mind, 2009, 30 x 40 inches, Oil on Canvas

Trees of Life

Animalitos On My Mind, 2009 36 x 48 inches Oil on canvas

Mariachis On My Mind, 2009 36 x 36 inches Oil on canvas

Mariscos On My Mind, 2009 36 x 51 inches Oil on canvas

Natividad On My Mind, 2009 24 x 30 inches Oil on canvas

Los Angeles On My Mind, 2009 30 x 48 inches Oil on canvas

Matrimonio On My Mind, 2009 36 x 48 inches Oil on canvas

Los Muertos On My Mind, 2009 30 x 40 inches Oil portrait collage

San Antonio On My Mind, 2009 30 x 40 inches Oil portrait collage

Huipilistas On My Mind, 2009 30 x 40 inches Oil on canvas

Life is a Circus On My Mind, 2009 24 x 36 inches Oil on canvas

Huipiles

Chile Lillies, 2007 40 x 30 inches Oil portrait collage

Mujer In Purple, 2007 24 x 30 inches Oil portrait collage

Nopalitos, 2007 36 x 40 inches Oil portrait collage

Choquito La Chicana, 2007 30 x 40 inches Oil portrait collage

Our Lady of Grace, 2007 30 x 48 inches Oil portrait collage

La Soldadera, 2007 30 x 30 inches Oil portrait collage

Somos Amigas, 2007 30 x 40 inches Oil portrait collage

Olivia’s Offering, 2007 30 x 30 inches Oil portrait collage

La Reina Huipilista, 2007 22 x 28 inches Oil portrait collage

Huipilista con Rebazo, 2007 22 x 28 inches Oil portrait collage

Found Objects

Oaxaca Huipil Maroon, 2011 Dimensions variable, 7:8 Digital print

VPrida Huipil No. 3, 2011 Dimensions variable, 1:1 Digital print

Oaxaca Huipil No.2 Midnight, 2011 Dimensions variable, 2:3 Digital print

VPrida Huipil No.1, 2011 Dimensions variable, 3:4 Digital print

Oaxaca Huipil No.3 Violet, 2011 Dimensions variable, 1:1 Digital print

S. Miguel Huipil Single No. 2, 2011 Dimensions variable, 3:4 Digital print

Floral Huipil No. 1 Dimensions variable, 1:1 Digital print

Floral Huipil Doble Dimensions variable, 5:4 Digital print

Interior Huipil No. 2 Dimensions variable, 2.8:2 Digital print

Regalos Huipil No. 2 Dimensions variable, 3:2 Digital print

Huipil La Niña, 2011 Dimensions variable, 1.9:2.2 Digital print

Milagro Hupil No. 4, 2011 Dimensions variable, 2:2.2 Digital print

Kathy Sosa

Commentary In each work of art there is a world. Secreted within each visual presence is the life of a whole culture and its history. To enter a work of art is to share a fresh vision of how a people sees itself at a specific moment in time. For Kathy Sosa, this sense of art as a dynamic portal is made clear in three major series of paintings and prints that draw upon the rich cultural heritage of Mesoamerica. The series share an intensity of vivid color and design motifs drawn from textiles, traditional garments, and sculptural objects created by indigenous peoples. In much of Sosa’s work are recurring images of women – vibrant, strong, and beautiful. In Huipiles, Sosa’s paintings focus on the traditional blouses of Mayan peoples of southern Mexico and Guatemala, and the women who wear them. The huipil is a woven and embroidered garment, with many distinctive forms. Each region and village has its own patterns and individual women create their own personal interpretations as well. The ancient tradition of the huipil is kept alive today by those who continue to make and wear these blouses in their everyday lives in Latin America as well as the U.S.-born women who collect and wear them as an act of cultural pride and personal style. In Sosa’s paintings, women sit or stand looking directly at us, in formal portrait poses. At the same time, they appear open and relaxed as their brilliant garments are echoed by the collaged fabrics or digitally printed patterns that serve as an encompassing backdrop. The effect is to be immersed in a decorative tide of color and design that surrounds the figures and floods our visual field. In Sosa’s series Found Objects, she concentrates on the woven textiles alone. Garments have been digitally scanned, manipulated, and enhanced with paint, glaze, or gilt. The result is a group of rectangles of saturated color that emphasize the abstract qualities and symmetry of the original floral designs. The greatly enlarged images, up to 60”x90”, capture the woven threads with remarkable verisimilitude. In the series Trees of Life, Sosa has reinterpreted a folk art form from Mexico as a kind of headdress for individual women. The traditional tree of life often incorporated figures of Adam and Eve, grandparents and parents, and a bride and groom, joining generations in a spiritual lineage that links heaven and earth. In Sosa’s hands, the tree of life becomes a nimbus of thoughts or obsession, as each woman mentally bears her hopes and fears like a crown of glory. These paintings are like icons, in which the personal merges with a sense of one’s place in the great chain of life. –John Mendelsohn

Kathy Sosa

Biography Kathy Sosa creates intensely colored and patterned art that draws upon the cultural heritage of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Guatemala. Her paintings, which often focus on women, incorporate traditional textiles, garments, and folk art objects. Sosa was born in Pike County, Alabama in 1953, and as a child was attracted to working creatively in both art and writing. She moved with her family to San Antonio TX, and she has lived there ever since. The artist has been deeply influenced by mestisaje, the blending of cultures and languages in the TexasMexico border region. Sosa majored in political science at St. Mary’s University, graduating in 1974, and later earned an MA in the same discipline, also at St. Mary’s. She first worked as a middle school teacher, then in advertising, where in 1984 one of her projects was to organize ¡Mira!, the first national traveling exhibition of Latino art in America. This experience introduced Sosa to the work of many artists, and awakened her to the vibrancy of Latino visual cultural. She credits her husband Lionel’s communal painting studio for inspiring her desire to make her own art. In the early 2000s Sosa created a series of stylized portraits, influenced by the Italian modernist Modigliani. Soon after, she began to develop a technique she calls “portrait collage”, where she cut up her original portraits and combined them with pieces of patterned fabrics. Sosa followed this work with the series Women I Have Known and Women @ Play, many of which utilized the “portrait collage” method to depict figures in a variety of expressive activities. In 2007, Sosa began Huipiles, her breakthrough series of female figures dressed in traditional blouses. The vividly decorated garments have an ancient history and are part of the living Mayan culture. For her paintings, the women wearing huipiles are placed in front of backdrops of vibrant fabric, either collaged material or a digital print. Sosa’s paintings received national recognition in the exhibition, Huipiles: A Celebration, which originated at the Mexican Cultural Institute, in Washington, D.C. as part of the Smithsonian Latino Center’s 2007 summer season, and then traveled to the Smithsonian’s Museo Alameda in San Antonio. In 2009, Sosa began her series Trees of Life, paintings in which the Mexican folk art object serves as a kind of crown for individual women. The tree of life has within it the image of linked generations, and symbolizes the thoughts or obsession which each woman carries with her. Found Objects, a series of digital prints at times enhanced with paint, uses scanned images of textiles to emphasize their intensely colored floral designs. Recently the artist has begun a new series focusing on women of the Mexican Revolutionary period. There are plans for an exhibition and a book with essays incorporating the series. Sosa’s exhibitions have included solo and two-person exhibitions at AnArte Gallery, Galleria Ortiz, and Blue Star Contemporary Space, all in San Antonio, and Shain Gallery in Charlotte NC. Her work has been the subject of reviews and articles in many publications.

Kathy Sosa

Artist’s Statement The Huipiles series began in 2005, followed by two groups of work, Trees of Life and Found Objects, which evolved from it. All of these series grew out of an obsession with textiles and other folk art of Mexico and Guatemala. Female figures are the central to the Huipiles paintings. They wear traditional blouses with hand-woven or embroidered textiles. Painted portraits of women on canvas are collaged onto a background of embroidered or printed fabric. Or the surface may be a digital print of boldly patterned material. Painted in heightened colors, the women in these paintings look directly at the viewer. Transformed by the power of their costumes, they are beautiful and proud contemporary embodiments of an ancient, indigenous culture. The Trees of Life are paintings with a female figure who wears a folk art object as a kind of crown. Trees of Life are traditional objects that symbolize the continuity of family and linked generations. In the paintings, traditional designs may be adapted or serve as an inspiration for a newly invented form. The painted headdress carries the thoughts or concerns of each woman. The Found Objects, are digital prints of manipulated fabric patterns. The original vintage garment is digitally scanned and rearranged to create a continuous design. The strong floral patterns are emphasized, the colors may be enhanced, and paint may be added. The digital process retains great detail in these pieces which may be life-size or greatly enlarged. These pieces are puro mestisaje, a total mix. They are a product of a borderland, where people have mixed and merged for centuries and formed a blended culture that has become uniquely its own. The artist is both a participant and an observer in an emerging culture, with a particular vantage point.

For exhibition inquiries contact Katharine T. Carter & Associates

Email: [email protected] Phone: 518-758-8130 Fax: 518-758-8133 Mailing Address: Post Office Box 609 Kinderhook, NY 12106-0609 Website: http://www.ktcassoc.com