Savannah-based Artist Katherine Sandoz’s “the gloaming” is a series of 24 layered and multi-dimensional works on canvas. The gloaming, or twilight, is a space between day and night. In a twilight state, we are neither awake nor asleep. The condition presents as transitional, dream-like, possibly transformational in nature. One’s ability to disappear or emerge collapses and fuses. This concept teaches us how the bardo, traditionally known as the space between life and death, might be extended.
Each painting in the series merges two structural presentations: iris blossoms with far-flung and diverse landscapes. With its distinctive structure and fleeting bloom, the iris becomes both a symbol of impermanence and a structural and compositional model for the landscape. “What if everything in the physical world shares the iris’ morphology?” asks Katherine. “What if everything and everyone, including the shape of The Universe, is a flower?”
In these works, the petals of the iris unfurl to become clouds, skies, and terrain that could belong to this world or another. The hybrid forms—part flower, part landscape—do not resolve into singular interpretations. Instead, they shift in and out of legibility, echoing the disorientation and possibility of the bardo. The layered image allows us to be in several places at once: in a shadow, on a path, standing at the foot of a mountain, skimming the surface of a caldera. Conceptually, the viewer is invited to be a part of any plane, place, or happening or to discover and know all of them simultaneously.
“In the gloaming, we are in and of everything: passing tempests, shadows, crashing waves, whirlpools of salt and fresh water, melting ice, and each one a vivid, vibrant, fugitive iris blossom,” says Katherine. “Within this body of work, abstraction and color volley to conceal and reveal. The paintings become bardos, allowing the viewer to inhabit many liminal spaces in one moment, in myriad ways and in varying timelines.”
"(the gloaming) moonrise + hedge," water-based media on canvas, 48 by 60 inches
"(the gloaming) hillside + valley," water-based media on canvas, 48 by 60 inches
"(the gloaming) cloud on marsh," water-based media on canvas, 36 by 48 inches
"(the gloaming) gloaming," water-based media on canvas, 36 by 48 inches
"(the gloaming) sunset + crests," water-based media on canvas, 48 by 60 inches
"(the gloaming) sea + marsh," water-based media on canvas, 36 by 48 inches
"(the gloaming) little compton + sky," water-based media on canvas, 48 by 60 inches
"(the gloaming) clouds + sandhills + meadow," water-based media on canvas, 36 by 48 inches
"(the gloaming) sunrise + beach," water-based media on canvas, 36 by 48 inches
"(the gloaming) river + sundown," water-based media on canvas, 30 by 30 inches
"(audra) surf iris," water-based media on canvas, 20 by 24 inches
"(audra) hiroshinge iris," water-based media on canvas, 20 by 24 inches
"(audra) sea & sand iris," water-based media on canvas, 20 by 24 inches
"(audra) twilight iris," water-based media on canvas, 20 by 24 inches
"(audra) wyspiański iris," water-based media on canvas, 20 by 24 inches
"(the gloaming) river + ocean meet," water-based media on canvas, 48 by 48 inches
"(the gloaming) cliff + beach," water-based media on canvas, 48 by 48 inches
"(the gloaming) mountainside at night," water-based media on canvas, 48 by 48 inches
"(the gloaming) shadows + water lilies" water-based media on canvas, 48 by 48 inches
With the marshes, waterways and people of the low-country offering perennial inspiration, Katherine Sandoz examines the quotidian and offers work that celebrates what is precious and unique. She studies, analyzes, and reframes small moments, the mundane, neglected details of the day and the diurnal rhythms that, in turn, inspire illustrations, paintings, fibers-based works, installations and public art. She creates richly woven abstract landscapes utilizing passages of transparent and opaque, warm and cool, textured and smooth layers of water-based media. These dynamic compositions allow the viewer to experience the subject matter from multiple vantage points at once.
Katherine holds an MFA in Painting and an MFA in Illustration from the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she was Professor of Illustration from 1997 to 2005. In 2019, The Telfair Museum’s Jepson Center for the Art commissioned a large-scale aerial sculpture and mural for their atrium from Katherine. In 2021, she was named the featured Fine Artist at the Thomasville Wildlife Arts Festival, Thomasville, GA. Katherine has acted as an independent curator for Telfair Museums and Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum. Her paintings sit in the permanent collections of the Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences, Savannah College of Art and Design, Moffit McKinley Cancer Center, Baptist Medical Center, Perry Lane Hotel, Thomasville Center for the Arts, Phillips Arena and Emory Healthcare.
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