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Luca Curci talks with Ai-Wen Wu Kratz during ANIMA LC- What are you currently working on?
MUNDI FESTIVAL 2019 – CONSCIOUSNESS at THE ROOM AWWK – The painting I am working on is a canvas in 61
Contemporary Art Space. x 76 cm. I am not a writer, but I like good writings. I use
colors as if I would choose words in writings. I aim at
Ai-Wen Wu Kratz, a native of Hong Kong, works and lives making visual poems. After completing the painting I
in the United States. She received a BFA degree from Fort am working on now, I will work on a pair of paintings in
Wright College, Spokane, Washington; and a MFA degree the size of 81 x 76 cm each. However, this new pair of
from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. paintings is somewhat like a bridge to reach a much larger
She is an alumna of Skowhegan School of Painting and set of paintings. It would be a set of three larger canvases,
Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine; and of New York Studio each is 183 x 122 cm. I have wanted to make such a set of
School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, New York, paintings many years ago, and I have definite ideas what to
NY. She holds a Diploma from Institute For Writers, do with the three.
Madison, CT. In addition to the U.S., Kratz had One-Person
Exhibitions in France, Germany, England, Egypt and LC – What is your creative process like?
Austria. Her works are in collections in Canada, Germany, AWWK – Slowness in the process has been troubling me.
Bangladesh, Argentina and the U.S., including the Mildred My paintings are in hard edge. It requires taping, masking
Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. Her works and roller-and-brush application of paints. In fact, recently
embody spirituality, intellectualism and aesthetics. Kratz’s I have given thoughts to what must I do to save myself
works are represented by Agora Gallery, New York, NY, USA from the laborious process. In paint applications, I like to
and by AHC (Art History Consulting) Hamburg, Germany. see flat surfaces. Unfortunately, to produce at a reasonable
speed, I may have to yield to applying paints with brushes
Luca Curci – What is art for you? and leave marks as they are.
Ai-Wen Wu Kratz – The meaning of the word “art” can be
more than one. On a practical level, it means an unusual LC – Are your artworks focused on a specific theme?
skill acquired by practicing. For example, the art of making AWWK – For a period of time, my works were on the
a speech or the art of playing a musical instrument. themes of music and dance. Now, I am interested in the
On a higher level, it is creativity and expression. The pure organization of forms and movements. I have done
artists’imaginations give birth to forms, in sounds, in a number of works on shaped canvases in both linen and
images, in movements or in words and more. Therefore, cotton.For example, in my painting, “IMPROVISATION”,
music, paintings, sculpture, dance and literature, for on view at the exhibition with ITSLIQUID GROUP, I made
example, come from the pure imaginative power of the use of the raw linen and cotton canvases as part of the
composer, painter, sculptor, choreographer and writer. I am color scheme of the paintings. Now, my paintings have no
a painter. When I prepare an exhibition, I feel I am parallel specific themes. I attempt to use fully the basic elements
to a composer. Unlike an instrumentalist to prepare for in visual art, shape, form, movement, line and color to
a recital, there are music notes from composers to work express my sensitivity with an aim to compose visual
from. However, there are no fixed points either for a poems.
painter or a composer to work from, if anything at all for
us to amplify from, it would be our imagination, our hidden LC – How is being an artist nowadays?
feelings and sensitivities, which are very much affected AWWK – Financially, it is difficult for artists to survive. It
by cultivation and exposure in general. In short, we need seems not possible for an unknown artist to make a living
to rely on what makes who we are individually. For me, solely from selling artworks. In the U.S., in fact, worldwide
art and religion contribution to the order and civility of the duration for an exhibition in galleries is getting very
a culture. Art satisfies, which food alone fails to give. short. In the past, in general, each exhibition would be up
Along with science, art contributes to the making of the for one month. Nowadays, it is very expensive and much
wholeness of our existence as human.

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