Post on 10-Mar-2016
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Neslihan Cattoediciones godot
Neslihan Catto
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For Neslihan Catto, Shakespeare’s line
that “all the world’s a stage” might be
the words she lives by. Ever since she
was a child in Turkey, she has covertly
watched people. Overt staring would
have been inappropriate for a properly
brought up girl in Turkish society. But
she desperately wanted to unravel the
stories that lie behind the facial masks,
to understand what roles these actors
were playing. And after immigrating
to New York City as a teenager, she
pursued this preoccupation on paper.
Her passion became making charcoal
portraits; her subjects almost
exclusively strangers. Family and
friends get short shrift from her talent
because she fears she could manipulate
the drawings to satisfy her penchant
for telling stories. She wants fresh
eyes to reveal the person’s unique
PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS A STORYTELLERBy Diane Cochrane
qualities, not preconceived ideas. Still,
staring at strangers wasn’t any more
acceptable in America than in Turkey.
And working from photographs didn’t
provide an answer either; “there isn’t
enough spontaneity for me.” Searching
for an endless supply of models, she
discovered the perfect solution at The
Art Students League, one of New York’s
most respected art schools with an
alumni list that is a veritable Who’s Who
in American Art..
As a young woman, Catto studied at
CUNY and at the League, married and
had two children. Then about twenty
years ago she returned to the art school
just so she could paint and use its
models. The result is a series of maybe
100 extraordinary charcoal drawings,
some of which are now in corporate
and private collections. Others have
been exhibited at universities and
cultural centers in New Jersey and
galleries in New York City.
Catto’s portraits look beyond
appearance; they are interpretive
rather than descriptive. She strives
for psychological expression—either
her subject’s or her own or perhaps
both. The drawings sometimes
concentrate on unpleasant aspects of
the human predicament—fear, anger,
tension—emotions the viewer can
identify with even though recognition
can be appalling. Imagine this writer’s
shock when she first encountered Self-
Portrait, drawn during a particularly
unhappy time of Catto’s life, and saw
the disturbing vision of her own face
reacting to depression.
The characteristic intensity of Catto’s
portraits is heightened by an uneasy
frontality.
Artists from sculptors of the anguished
last days of the Roman Empire down
to expressionistic painters, such as
Egon Schiele and Alice Neel, of our
own angst-ridden era have employed
this device to reveal the man behind
the mask. The frontal stare of Catto’s
models forces total consideration of
every detail and its place within the
composition. Brows are furrowed;
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eyes deeply set; mouths pinched. But
it is the face as a whole with its terrible
tensions that set the viewer on edge.
There are few cast shadows so the
subject seems pinned like a specimen
under an unblinking light.
At the beginning of the session, Catto
walks around the model. “After all, a
person is three-dimensional—I can’t
look at the model from just one angle.
I might see a feature from the side that
will make all the difference. “The way
they blink their eyes, a smirk, a sloping
cheek--something that I will probably
exaggerate later.”
Capturing innate and often awkward
but distinctive gestures found in the
slight contortion of a mouth, or a
curious shy smile gives Catto a sense
of who they are. They unconsciously
assume their most characteristic poses
which proclaim their character and
social standing—what the world has
done to them and their reaction to it.
“As I look I get down a story about
them—I might connect them with
someone else I know with the same
facial characteristics, for example or,
depending on my mood at the time,
my impression might reflect how I feel
about them.” This first impression is
essential to Catto and she sticks with
it. “It’s not a complex analysis—just my
natural instincts kicking in.”
Next comes the process, and for Catto
the process is everything. She sits
flat on the floor in front of the model.
“This gives me a view from the neck
upward.” The musculature in the
upper body and neck can be a dead
give away in determining whether the
model is comfortable, in a bad mood or
whatever. In fact, she is more likely to
focus on these muscles at the beginning
than on the eyes or nose. John for
example, seemed an aggressive and
flamboyant gay dressed in leather hot
pants. His taut neck muscles, however,
told a different story. “He’s rigid like he
just swallowed a tack.”
Most striking about the process is the
urgency with which she approaches
the job of communicating her ideas
of the individual. “I work very fast.
I can’t draw slowly—I would lose
concentration. This way I get lost in
the drawing—I don’t feel my hand—it
is simply an extension of my eye.”
Launched headlong into a frenzy of
drawing, she uses an economy of line
to initially map the face. A powerfully
drawn curve from ear to jaw-line might
jump-start the portrait. Or it might be
the arc of an egg-shaped bald head,
as illustrated in Bruce, that loads the
enormous burden of the dome onto a
prominent forehead. As she continues,
her drawing is remarkable for the
efficiency with which it composes and
describes while making every feature
an element of expression.
To accelerate the process, Catto doesn’t
want to think about materials. So she
uses only the most basic: acid free, 50%
rag, no-frills drawing paper and Ocaldo
black and white charcoals. “These
are really like black and white pastels.
They’re not forgiving or erasable—I
use white as my eraser.” It covers the
myriad fingerprints she leaves on the
paper, as well as large mistakes. When
Catto began Robert, she originally
drew him with the full head of hair he
possessed. Then, the image of Robert
as a tyrant took over the creative
process. “You can still see where I put
a block of white to flatten the hair. This
was almost more work than the whole
drawing.” To complete the impression,
she added small strokes of black
charcoal to his forehead to resemble
the curls of a Roman dictator.
White also creates highlights, although
she uses it sparingly. “White gives
feather-like touches to masses of hair,”
like those seen in Daphne. Down-
turned mouths and drooping lips are
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reinforced by rubbing white charcoal
on the white paper.
Charcoal has a negative aspect,
however. “It is so dusty—its’ hard
to keep the paper clean.” After she
completes a drawing, Catto shakes
off the excess powder and sprays the
paper. Then she goes a step further
when the drawings are framed. The
portraits are double-matted with a 1/8”
space between the two mats, allowing
the dust to fall to the bottom instead
onto the outer mat.
On one occasion, the dust produced a
surprising side effect. As Catto settled
into her usual routine of sitting in front
of the model, Daphne immediately
began to complain that she was
getting dusty and demanded that the
artist stop. Her outburst was all Catto
needed to decide on Daphne’s outlook
on life. Anger and distrust worked their
way into a mask of hostility.
Interpreting a model’s personality
doesn’t always come easy. “It’s either
there for me or it’s not. If I start
to struggle, it doesn’t work.” But it
usually does. Her uncanny ability to
see through the cracks in outward
appearance is what makes her work so
compelling. Take Bruce, for example.
Catto immediately sensed that the
man did not want to model, especially
exposed in the nude--that he was
doing it for the money. To compensate,
he tried to exaggerate his manliness.
The macho look expressed itself in
the confrontational stare and the
nipple rings that shouted his ability to
withstand pain. Walking around him,
Catto was struck by the tightness in his
neck and the line beneath the ear, one
of the most sensitive and vulnerable
parts of the head. She twisted his neck
slightly to the left and squashed the
ear, transforming a man affecting a
calculated attitude of nonchalance to a
slightly bewildered one trying to put on
a good front.
Leslie tells a different story. Catto
imagined her as a white-collar criminal
just released from prison. Her nicely
styled hair and carefully plucked
eyebrows suggest respectability as do
the pearl earrings and necklace. But
the tense set of the mouth, the bitter
bulges under the lip and the coarse
and thickened neck reveal a darker
side, while the eyes, not able to meet
the viewer’s glance, reflect fear and
hopelessness.
Mercedes represents the other end of
the psychological spectrum. Dressed in
a beautiful caftan with a colorful head
wrap and fine gold jewelry, Catto found
her strong and proud, a woman at ease
with herself. “She also had a motherly
quality, but you wouldn’t want to fool
around with her.” To emphasize her
regal bearing, Catto tilted her head back
and turned her eyes upward, as though
calmly watching the world and all its
follies.
Catto sometimes wonders if her
interpretations are on target. “I hope
I’m not making them up altogether. I
believe it really is them.” Her fears are
unjustified, according to one of the
instructors, Peter Homitzky, who does
know the models. “Catto nails them,”
he said without hesitation.
In the past, Catto has used other
mediums and subjects. Large colorful
oil still lives hang on the walls of her
loft in Jersey City. Nowadays she still
considers painting, particularly people.
“But a whole figure would distract
me. I would lose concentration. I
also don’t want to think about color
and composition. I have found my
medium.” And when her work satisfies
her, she says, “I bring someone home
with me.”
It’s either there for me or it’s not. If I start to
struggle, it doesn’t work.
Women
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Yunny
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