Katanya fights cancer with art
Sixty people braved the cold to turn up for Katanya's open air art exhibition in Zwavelpoort. The exhibition was held on 8 June at Ronel van Eeden's smallholding, where visitors warmed themselves at a bonfire.
Artist Katanya (Jeanette Smith) sold 26 paintings on the day. She said it was a huge surprise to her that some of her art students, who stay in Faerie Glen, close to Jeanette's studio, came all the way to buy some paintings..
Two years ago Jeanette was told that the cancer she contracted eight years previously had returned. When she heard the sad news, she spread canvasses of every shape and size all around her studio and began a frenzy of creativity to express every emotion and thought she has inside of her in the time she has left with us
Her most recent series, called 'Earth Angles', is inspired by her life at this moment. Jeanette is undergoing chemo treatment and said that it is influencing her positively to paint "God is positive energy, and so is art. she said. In her speech at the exhibition, Estelle Kovacs from Unisa said that Jeanette has been painting since she was a little girl. She studied fine art at Unisa and at the University of Pretoria. While working for many years in the field of advertising, painting remained her true passion and Jeanette left the commercial world to pursue a career in fine art.
Her paintings are awash with vivid shapes and colours. She works on several paintings at the same time, each one expressing her feelings and mood at that particular moment. Charcoal oil pastels and old brushes dipped into bright acrylic paint are Jeanette's most favoured materials. She loves to use wax and varnish to embed the charcoal lines. Sometimes she uses a mixed medium to create new surfaces to paint on and at times scratches away some of the surface to apply yet another layer of paint and create an almost three dimensional effect.
"Art has always been my passion, my strength and protection against the outside world and my tool of empowerment," Jeanette said.
"We honour life when we work. The type of work is not important; the fact of work is. All work feeds the soul if it is honest and done to the best of our abilities and if it brings joy to others."
A bit of history:
A true artist full of style and eccentricity her name is Jeanette but is Katanya in the world of art. She has sold over 350 works of art and had many successful private art exhibitions over the past 25 years in Johannesburg where she lived. She now lives in Faerie Glen, Pretoria.
Katanya ran an Studios/Art Gallery for 6 years in Paulshof, Sandton, where she also gave art classes and promoted international artists such as Severino Ballarghia, an Italian Sculptor, Orazzio Sperotto a ceramic sculptor and Pamela Prendini, a painter.
The Karen McKarren Gallery in Johannesburg has been interested in Katanya’s oil pastel horses. Karen remarked that Katanya’s style and technique is so unique that it is not even necessary for her to sign her pieces; one can recognize them immediately. The Natalie Knight Gallery has also favored Katanya’s black and white horses done in pen and ink medium.
Technique and Style:
Having studied at UNISA and The University of Pretoria, Katanya has developed her own unique style over the years and is naturally very experienced in her technique. Katanya’s great versatility shows in her main themes which are Horses and Men, Spiritual tree figures, Picasso-Woman and Modern Moan-a-lisa’s (note the spelling), Landscapes, Flowers and her latest Figure drawing/paintings. She has a great love for her fine art and paints or draw almost everyday.
The medium that Katanya uses consists of charcoal and acrylic combined. These help to achieve the desired texture and effect she wants to achieve, this can be seen especially in her latest figure drawing paintings. “ It is how and what I paint that matters” says Katanya. It has taken her many years to master the embedment of charcoal and she now does this by making a special mixture of bees wax and varnish, layering with quick movements integrating it with acrylic paints and charcoal. Her style is a combination of drawing with charcoal and dry brush painting strokes mixed together that forms an integral part within her paintings to express emotion what she experience between her and the object or figure.
Katanya is very experimental in her studios. With an Apple Mac laptop on the one side and an empty canvass on the other side she watches films of horses, carefully observes them with great concentration and then captures and draws the first powerful lines in charcoal on canvas according to her memory of the images. She says it takes a great amount of energy and concentration and much practice to capture the precise movements and effects on a huge canvas. She captures the essence of the horses running for instance and by doing this she creates a lot of movement within her works of art.
Katanya, sometimes spends a week on one painting or drawing depending on whether she is satisfied or not; whether she has created the desired mood and effect. Each line and marking of charcoal is carefully thought through and analyzed before she actually puts it down on canvass. To create the effect of movement takes years to master and is therapeutic in doing so; drawing every day is a must! She is at peace while she does this, her mind and soul are connecting and revealing on canvas.
It is meaningful and actually a touching and exciting experience to watch an artist like Katanya at work. A spontaneous or planned brush stroke here, a powerful line there and an array of either spectacular colors or a mixture of smokey charcoal, greys and even pen are essential elements of her creativity. Katanya compliments her impressive, rare and modern nudes with a combination of charcoal, acrylic and oil pastels technique.
Inspirations:
An artist very close to Katanya’s heart and soul, is Pablo Picasso. His famous one lined brush strokes and five second nudes are a great inspiration to her. She continuously recruiting models for her own woman paintings and according to her, to master a Picasso-style painting the artist needs a model to sit and pose. Only a highly experienced, creative mind will transfer the shapes, color and lines to make them appear pleasing and warm to the eye yet resembling the model herself! In the true words of Picasso- “An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought”
Katanya believes that each of her paintings must have real meaning. When one looks at them they must speak to one and tell something. They need to tell what Katanya is thinking and feeling in her moment of creativity.
Other artists that speak to her soul include Leonardo Da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh for his unique style, Cezanne for his subtle colors and brush strokes, Michealangelo Buonorotti and Matisse for their wonderful inspiring color. She says that Matisse’s color is what inspires her to paint her Katanya’s women. Also Toulouse Lautrec and Gauguin’s inspiration and especially Amadeo Modigliani’s inspiration for her portaying of nude figures.
To be a successful artist, Katanya knows she has to rely on the creativity, versatility and her eccentric peaceful nature. An artist needs true spirit and dedication, perhaps also a bit of eccentricity and definitely a vivid imagination; As Van Gogh once said- “I dream of painting and then I paint to dream.”
As an artist, Katanya often goes back to the very basics of drawing and does figure drawing studies on a continuous basis. This helps her to structure and analyze and picture her horses in her mind before she puts down those strong powerful strokes of charcoal that create the movement on canvas. The mere size of the canvas is what makes it so challenging to perfect the effect of movement.
Da Vinci once mentioned- “He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.” This is Katanya for you. She knows what she wants to put onto canvas; she has already had an epiphany in her mind and reveals this as she paints and lets her creative imagination do the rest. She paints on an ongoing basis expressing her unfulfilled burning desire to reveal what she feels. She has so many ideas and stories to tell through her paintings and drawings.
She quotes- “I paint for the love of it”. Is there any other reason to paint? She has answered that question.