Katherine Venturelli, a Northern California artist, creates limited edition artist books and intaglio and monotype prints. Her artwork depends upon the power of symbolic imagery. Her works reveal her penchant for communicating via recognizable symbols or metaphors that are universally archetypal and yet open to viewers' interpretation.
She lectures and facilitates monotype printmaking workshops for amateur and professional artists. She is an art instructor for the Los Rios Community Colleges.
Noted in publications and awarded for her prints and artists' books, Venturelli continues to exhibit nationally and internationally. Her artwork is represented in numerous private and permanent collections, including the Reva and David Logan Collection;
Achenbach Collection for Graphic Arts at the S.F. Palace of the Legion of Honor; Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, N.M; Roswell Fine Art Museum, N.M.; Las Vegas Art Museum; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Getty Museum Research Institute,L.A.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minn.;.and the Special Collections of U.S.C., U.C.S.D., Mills College, and Univ. of Washington.
Besides working in her studio in Sutter Creek, CA., over the past 30 years Katherine has had the opportunity to work in Joel Greene's printmaking studio in Santa Fe, NM. In 2008, she was included in the published book "100 Santa Fe Etchers".
The Work of Katherine Venturelli
by Sandra Kroupa
In the history of the book, visual language, with and without accompanying text,
has been a reoccurring element. Whether in the Mayan Codices, hiero glyphs, 17th
Century Emblem books or modern graphic novels, the power of symbolic images have
long been used to convey complex thought.
The work of Katherine Venturelli depends on symbolic language.
Venturelli's books are image based, with text used occasionally.
The artist works with classic symbols: the burning house, whirlwind
spiral, geometric shapes and lunar images.
Venturelli's artists' books, created primarily with beautifully produced and
printed intaglios in small editions, are often in the accordion form, sometimes
with a sculptural shape in keeping with the theme.
Thematically
Venturelli may work with a harmonious cycle such as in Lunar Temple (1998)
displaying phases of the moon in 7 copper pages, or focus on variations of
a theme as in Blueprint of a Symbol (1997) exploring the circle in a copper
book using etched text. House on Fire (1996) is a visual narrative with both
a main image and a contrasting symbolic reference point above. Venturelli
also uses monoprints and graphite.
Sandra Kroupa is Book Arts Librarian in Special Collections at the
University of Washington. This excerpt is from ‘Parenthesis”,
the Newsletter of the Fine Press Book Association, April 2000.
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Universal Language III
Intaglio print, framed
unique impression (1/1)
$750
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