Cat-ω!-γη, 2019
Born in 1966 in Athens; studied at the Vakalo School and the Athens School of Fine Arts under Nikos Kessanlis, on a Greek state scholarship; she obtained a post-graduate degree from the University of Derby. She has held solo exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions in Greece and other countries, as well as the young artists biennials in Valencia, Barcelona, and Rijeka. Her work is in many private collections and public spaces. She has received the First Prize of the Jannis & Zoe Spyropoulos Foundation and published ΘΕΟΙ 1, Oxy. She has illustrated books and magazines, and designed costumes for theatre productions; she has also curated exhibitions at ΣτοΣχολείο, the Vakalo School, the Theocharakis Foundation, the Museum of Cycladic Art, and the Benaki Museum. She has worked for Focus School of Photography, the Children’s Art Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art; since 1996, she has been teaching at Vakalo School. For ten years, she was a contributor, illustrator, and editor of the two-page art coverage in Erevnites (Kathimerini newspaper Saturday edition). Founding member of ΚΛΑΝ´Σπλας, ΣτοΣχολείο. a groundbreaking private art school she runs jointly with her companion in life and art, Stavros Bonatsos.
Angie Karatza has produced an original installation focusing on her perennial passion – cats. With her playfulness, Karatza has recently been surprising us by her enjoyable involvement with poetry, where she channels her true passion, obsessions, weaknesses, loves, overall personality. For this work, she has composed a text which, in her unmistakable voice, reveals her thoughts, wishes, the creative process that engendered this installation. Disarmingly and humorously, she notes: ‘For the 60th anniversary of Katogi wine, I adapted the cat to the wine, or the wine to the cat. I found the ideal condition that plays with words, with meanings, and pulls the strings, which, fortunately, are not plumb lines. For my lifeline is intercourse with art...’ In her work, she makes us smile through her honesty, sincerity, and sense of humour.
Two black metal cats, attached on wooden coffeehouse chairs, with fabric and pillows for the seat, evoke a cafe corner, where the viewer can sit down. A readymade white coffee table is placed in the centre, with two glasses and, of course, a bottle of Katogi wine. The black metal cats are suggested by their faces and moustaches, drawn in white; their front and hind legs, and ears are made of fabric. Behind, on the wall, between the cat chairs, an illuminated Plexiglas sign, also playful and interesting in design, proclaims the title of this work, Cat-ω!-γη, in a mixture of Greek and English. A pun on the wine of honour and her love of cats. The letters on the sign are red, except ω!, which is yellow. Everything is there for a reason, even the sign colours, the artist explains: The yellow in ω! and the red letters are references to felines and the earth, as well as the red and white wine.
The work was created especially for the group anniversary exhibition “Lands of Creation, A tribute to Metsovo”, which was inaugurated at the E. Averoff Museum of Modern Art in 2019.