My Statement!

I am Kati Braverman, a 2-D acrylic painter who started her journey by painting portraits of people and animals. I\'ve always employed Pointillism as a main element of my style, having been influenced by neo-Impressionistic painters like Georges Seurat and Vincent van Gogh and painting primarily on canvas. However, I have become more enthralled with incorporating texture using pastes and gels to create a more \'vintage\' quality to my work, and the amount of texture I use requires a more stable panel than canvas, so I started painting on plywood and birchwood. Then I began to experiment with metallic paint, gold leaf foil, and very fine glitter, thanks to the influence of Gustav Klimpt\'s ghost, and collage materials, courtesy of National Geographic. I found myself moving away from human and animal portraiture and exploring conceptualization using trees, abstract themes, and music, the latter of which makes perfect sense as I studied music in my youth and am married to a musician who occasionally enjoys "soundtracking" me while I stiple a panel.

The stipling process that I use to create the dots is very satisfying for me; I\'m not what one would describe as a patient person; yet, the stipling is very calming for me and helps me to focus on color, light, value, and detail. I want my paintings to \'move\' with the available light, so many of my \'dots\' are very highly texturized, and I often thicken the paint with fine glitter to enhance texture and light-catching ability. Stipling is a very large part of how I paint!

I usually begin a panel with a base of crackle paste, sometimes mixed with paint, to create a vintage, weathered look. Then I plant myself in front of the finished panel and look for shapes and \'images\' formed by the cracks created by the crackle paste. Then I use whatever my brain decides I need or feels like using to create the focal point, then building around that focal point to create a story that changes with light and with whoever is viewing my work.

For example, in creating "The Band that Played at LoLa's Party", the original theme was much darker; I was going to depict souls marching to the afterlife. However, after blocking some of the people on the panel\'s upper portion, I \'jumped the gun\' and added foils -- because I had been waiting for them to arrive in the mail and was really excited about using them -- and so I thought I had messed up this painting for sure. However, after posting what I had done on Facebook, a friend (named LoLa) chimed in and said that she thought that the people looked like musicians, and suddenly, I had a new direction. Hence, the painting\'s title, "The Band that Played at LoLa's Party", is named after her. I added more people, several musical instruments, and the percussion in "LoLa's" skirt of foil. After several months of work, I finally finished the panel and recently had it framed, and so I humbly submit my work for your review. I hope you likae it as much as I do!

I feel that, since 2017, when I started taking art classes at the Hudgens Center for Art and Learning, I\'ve grown and have expanded my range as an artist, and I credit Elizabeth Stallings, my teacher, for helping me to find my style. Artists need community, and I\'m a part of a small community of artists who continue to meet for open studio time at the Hudgens while Elizabeth takes a summer-long, well-deserved break.