Kathrin Racz

Kathrin Racz is a Swiss artist living and working in Berne. In her artistic education, she was notably guided and inspired by Johannes Itten’s color theory. A renowned expressionist painter, designer, teacher and writer associated with the Bauhaus school, Itten developed the Farbkreis (colour circle) in 1961, which has become a standard reference for generations of artists. It combines the three primary colours yellow, red and blue, the three secondary colours green, purple and orange, as well as the six in-between colours. Cross-references to Josef Albers and Max Bill, and their influential educational work, obviously come to mind.

All these colours and tones find themselves united in various ways in Kathrin’s works, be it in her abstract landscapes, the semi-abstract portraits, or the other more figurative works. Her works are the result of a longer process, carried out in multiple stages. Over time, the paintings and drawings start to reveal their “true colours”, that is to say, their deeper meaning or their hidden face. The starting point for her artistic works are deeply human observations of our life condition in an ever changing environment.

The immediately appealing “Blind Summit” series of 2020, painted with oil on recycled wood boxes, previously used for electric installations, is based both on a Scottish street sign and a personal life experience. These subtle compositions are meant to show us that we all proceed towards the unknown, unable to glean behind the next peak we may be trying to reach. The “Heads”, on canvas or paper, project us even more deeply into the human mind. They address complex and deeply intriguing issues, such as our family ties, or the thoughts that may keep us up at night.