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Katherine Sherwood
Unfathomable Logic
Mixed media on canvas
62 x 51 inches
2003
© 2003 Katherine Sherwood
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Katherine Sherwood
The vocabulary found in San Francisco-based Katherine Sherwood’s paintings is derived from two primary sources. Lithographic renderings of the artist’s own post stroke angiograms are layered against painted symbols derived from the Lemegeton (also known as The Lesser Key of Solomon, as the calligraphic emblems are said to have been drawn by King Solomon) a seventeenth-century handbook of sorcery containing calligraphic emblems believed to embody forces capable of such things as granting wishes and healing illnesses.
Sherwood explores formal similarities between the emblems and the angiograms. One representation comes from the ancient practice of magic, and the other is associated with contemporary science. The flatness of the photolithographic angiograms contrasts with the color and depth of the poured-on paint in the emblems, a contrast that mimics the distance in time between the mediums as well as the ideas represented by the contrasting elements.
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Foras
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In the painting Unfathomable Logic the bold gestural marks refer to the symbol Foras from the Lemegeton. According to practitioners of white magic, invoking Foras can make one wise, witty and wealthy. Additionally, it can restore lost property, and teach logic and the virtues of stones and plants.
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By placing these marks over her own angiogram, Sherwood does more than compare the formal qualities. There is a blending of epistemological ideas that are both rational and mysterious, reminding us that our bodies are not merely theoretical sites but physical ones that exist and function in evolving cultures.
Visit Katherine Sherwood's website
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