Elyse Katz creates paintings that function as landscapes of the inner world. Rather than approaching landscape in a literal sense, her work is shaped by memory, lived experience, and impressions gathered from places encountered over time. Influenced by the visual language of both urban and rural terrain seen from above, her paintings also draw from the textures, colors, and fragmented surfaces of weathered materials, especially those marked by remnants of text and numbers.
Her process begins intuitively, without a predetermined outcome. Each painting starts with mark-making, allowing the surface to become active through gesture, play, and discovery. Layers of paint and collage are built up, scraped into, obscured, and revealed, creating a visual history within the work. As the surface evolves, the painting begins to suggest its own direction.
Elyse is especially interested in contrast: defined and blurred edges, opaque fields of color alongside transparent washes, and the tension between structure and spontaneity. At its best, the studio process becomes immersive and instinctive, a state in which time falls away and the painting seems to emerge on its own.
