"Katrina Rhein was born in 1979 and raised in New York. She currently lives and creates in New York, NY and is the Manager of Castle Gallery in Westchester, NY and an Instructor and Professional Content Specialist at the College of New Rochelle, also located in Westchester, NY. Her multi-media work analyzes engendered fantasy and consumerism, conveying distortions of certain biological processes due to cultural interference. The concept of each piece focuses on the alteration of these basic, fundamental needs, both physical and psychological, into cultural wants. Her aim is to playfully expose fears of mortality, to make the toll of the impossible visibly evident by highlighting the absurdities of conflicting cultural messages."
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"untitled (diagram)" from Sweet Rewards, digital print
The following is an interview conducted between myself, Alina Bachmann, and artist Katrina Rhein on October, 27th 2006.
Katrina, how has digital media and technology affected/aided your concept? Both conceptually and construction-wise, technology is an integral part of my work. Although it may not be immediately obvious when looking at the things I create (especially the few I chose for display in the Mooney Center Gallery) I’m interested in how, through technology, we unsuccessfully attempt to cheat death (the aging process). This can be done through actual alterations to our physical self, or alterations to our captured image (‘airbrushing’ of images- no more cellulite, no more under-eye rings, no more wrinkles, etc.). So, I suppose its only fitting that I use digital media / technology in its construction. What does digital media allow you to do or achieve that "traditional" media does not?
As I mentioned previously, creating work digitally provides an additional freedom that creating work by hand does not. For me, this freedom mostly applies to the possibility of change and the creation of multiple versions of one specific piece. Digital media is also much kinder when it comes to ‘errors’. It would take much more work to undo something one is displeased with when it comes to tactile materials; when creating computer generated work, correcting an unwanted alteration often only involves using the ‘undo’ command (god bless). Also, the speed at which things can be created / altered is wonderful. More ‘traditional’ work requires a love of labor, where once I start playing with work on the computer the piece can often be created and completed with ease (that is, if I have a clear idea as to what I want and the knowledge of how to make it happen through the software I’m using).
What computer programs/tools do you utilize for your digital pieces? Because I create static work that involves the collaging of jpeg images I heavily rely on photoshop.
In your pieces that are a combination of digital and traditional media, what is your process? How do you go about combining each media and what is your concept in doing so? Be it visible or not in the finished product, the process of creation for all of my work involves a continual back and forth play between computer work and hand work. For finished pieces that are strictly mixed media paintings, each began as a photomontage created on the computer; alterations are made digitally to the draft until I have created what would successfully be translated into painting/mixed media.
For the pieces that are strictly digital, they to began as images and drawings that I attempted to merge digitally.
For the work that contains digital prints and mixed media I wanted keep the best of both worlds by combining the crispness of a digital image (that would be lost if my ape hands were to paint it) and the playful 3-dimensional quality and psychological connection one has to physical, hand created components.
My previous work was about alteration of the entire body and had a monstrous cyborg-ish feel to it (for one collage a woman’s body was the base and swivel neck of an imac). The recent Sweet Rewards series honed in on dental technology, some utilitarian (x-rays, caps, etc.), some merely decorative (gold plating with diamond accents).
Construction-wise, using technology to actually create the work lends me freedom within a 2-dimensional/virtual realm that is not available through ‘handwork’. Each of my paintings is originally constructed as computer generated drafts. This allows me to tweak each piece in regards to both color and composition; with a click or two I can easily alter scale, color, arrangement, opacity, etc. Many of these things would be impossible to do if I were to create a draft with just the physical drawings and clippings I’ve collected. Unfortunately, presented alone I think it often has a cold feeling to it- the physical nature of handwork isn’t evident, severing potential basic psychological ties that hand manipulated tactile work encourages.
Its also highly cost effective (minus the computer and printing costs) and easily reproduced.
For more information and artwork by Katrina Rhein, please visit her website at http://katrinarhein.30art.com.
The artwork featured on this page and in the rollover image are copyrighted Katrina Rhein.