artist statement
“Painting is for me a way to show intimate concepts that words alone cannot carry. My pallet is the key to the emotional exchange with each color that I use. I consider each new canvas an opportunity to imagine and find solutions to create beauty. My paintings are my intimate perception of the world; a place where I experience the magic of being present while giving life to my desires, emotions, and intuitions.”
bio
Born in Italy to a family of musicians and artists Katia expressed her childhood artistic creativity making drawings and paintings. She studied Illustration at the School of Visual Art in New York and Oil Techniques and Figure Drawing at the New York Academy of Art. She has continued her visual arts studies working in the studio with Laurence Karasek, an internationally-renowned artist and continues to paint on large format canvases. After earning a MA degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures from University of Catania in Italy she moved to New York City where she studied Marketing at the School of Business at Fordham University.
Katia founded the Italian Language & Cultural Arts Center in 2004, Centro Raccontami was located for 13 years in the West Village of Manhattan. As director she organized art and cultural events & language workshops for the 200 students that joined the Center every semester. In 2005 and 2007 she published two educational music CDs - “Canzoni per Bambini vol. I and vol. II”. The lyrics and illustrations were inspired by teaching the little children.
From 2012, Katia has presented solo art exhibitions in Italy and in the States. Reflections in water and vegetation are often the subjects of her exhibitions, transforming her observations into abstract mosaics of color and texture. In her large format paintings she invites the viewer to experience gratitude and joy towards life and nature, in the hidden dimension of the relationship between forms and space, lights and shades.
In 2016 she moved with her husband Giovanni to St. John, US Virgin Islands, where she loves painting inspired by the natural beauty. Katia has been exploring ways to connect painting and textile processes, printing her images on velvet, silk and organic cottons and launching a new line of wearable art handmade in Italy. Since 2020, she has been a member of the board of St. John School of Arts. In January, 2021, Katia opened her art gallery in Cruz Bay in St John and invites people to visit her while she is painting ( Monday through Saturday 4:30-8:00 pm).