"Mary Katz...has brought to her work a layered sensibility...with patterns layered over each other, the paint visceral and almost inviting touch. And it's layered with a deep sense of art history, from the various modernist schools of the early 20th century to the more iconoclastic totemic works of more recent years. It's strong work, balancing eclecticism...and the historic." —Paul Smart, Woodstock Times, May 9, 2013
 
 
My painting begins with an affinity for the endless prairie and wide sky of the plains, where I grew up. Light and line, subtlety and absence—that internalized visual geography, both comfort and provocation, often finds expression in my work through minimalism and abstraction. The paintings usually begin with only a notion about color or form. I experiment with the interplay of color and line, light and dark, in an effort to find the personal in the process.

Exploring the relationships between perception and making, and making and permanence, is the subtext of my work. In all of the paintings I try to create a spatial representation of the passage of time—successive moments never disappear completely, nor do they remain themselves. 

I often extend my process beyond the completion of the paintings by using digital technologies. I experiment with photographing the paintings and manipulating their digital images to transform them into new images. I may also work back into them by painting or drawing on the new prints. The digital process reimagines the idea of permanence, with the painting as part of the subtext of the digital image.