LIGHT FICTION | KATJA MATER

The familiar though mind-blowing awareness that colour is but a fiction of light is one of the returning subjects in Katja Mater’s work. She uses film and photography to capture a parallel reality that usually remains invisible to us due to the limitations of our own eyes.

In the 16 mm film ''Composition of Light'' white light becomes an image maker. By refracting light with a prism and using the split colours of the different wavelengths in new orders, Mater builds compositions on film. Using the invisible properties of light as an instrument to create images. (2013)

In the slide projection ”The Wheels; 38 colour wheels on 80 black and white slides”, a series of hand made colour wheels are photographed on black and white 35 mm slide film. The original colour wheels, based on various colour theory systems are transformed through the photographic act into gradient systems, in which hue and saturation become contrast and value. (2010)

In ’’Searching for White’’ colours are mixed by using the motion of 16 mm film. The colours of a three meter high color wheel painted on the wall are made to mix by the rotating the camera around its lens. Blending its colours by the movement to almost green while Mater starts to paint the wheel adding other colours in order to try to achieve a perfect white. (2009)



Katja Mater graduated from Fine Arts of the Rietveld Academy in 2003 and subsequently attended the two-year artist institute program of The Ateliers, both in Amsterdam.  Her work has been exhibited in institutions like the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam NL, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève CH, De Vleeshal Middelburg NL, Casa Encendida Madrid SP, Temporary Gallery Cologne DE, AMOA - Arthouse Austin USA, and Fotogalleriet Oslo NO. In 2013 her book Multiple Densities was published by ROMA Publications.

www.katjamater.nl