Working with resin for 25 years, Phoenix-based artist Mayme Kratz casts bobcat claws, snake vertebrae, cicada wings, shells and other found objects into striking and atmospheric shrines to nature. “With my art, I celebrate the endless cycles of change and rebirth,” she explains. “I have great reverence for the natural world.” Kratz’s wall panels and freestanding columns, which have a fluid-like translucence, also often draw upon poetry and prose. “I usually start with a working title influenced by something I’m reading,” she says. “A poem or set of words lead me into a body of work and this opens the door to a place of exploration.”… read more

Mayme Kratz was born in San Diego County, California and has lived in Phoenix since 1986. Self-educated and focused on her creative life at an early age, she apprenticed with artist James Hubbell in her early twenties. Solo exhibitions include: The Tucson Museum of Art and The Tacoma Museum of Glass; as well as group exhibitions at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Phoenix Art Museum, and Blue Star Art in San Antonio, Texas. Her work is in many private and public collections throughout the United States and has recently been acquired for the new MGM Grand City Center Collection in Las Vegas, Nevada.… read more

Artist Mayme Kratz finds inspiration in Arizona’s harsh desert climate, collecting found organic materials and capturing them in a polymer resin. This act of preservation is an ode to the ephemeral–a memento mori–that forces the viewer to acknowledge their transient place in the world. Her Bloom series uses repetition to create undulating patterns that are reminiscent of psychedelic hallucinations, or even microscopic cell images. What results is a sense of rhythm that transfixes the viewer into meditation mode. The viewer’s eye inevitably follows the beat, their eyes gliding back and forth and around the panel. It feels like an infinitely intricate arrangement meant to remind the viewer the makeup of our own being.… read more

The precarious relationship between nature and humanity is the subject of this exhibition, drawn from SJMA’s permanent collection. For over two generations since Rachel Carson’s landmark book Silent Spring (1962) triggered the modern environmentalist movement, contemporary artists have been similarly moved by a primal reverence for nature and thus also prompted to raise questions about our rampant impact on the earth’s fragile ecosystems.… read more

Phoenix-based artist Mayme Kratz is preparing for her first exhibition at Dolby Chadwick Gallery. She will present herself to the San Francisco audience with the show titled Lost Light that is inspired by Rebecca Solint’s book of poetic thoughts A Field Guide to Getting Lost.… read more

When Mayme Kratz works, that could mean a number of things. The mixed-media artist, who has resided in Arizona since 1986, likes to walk the trails in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve and Superstition Mountains, which are visible from her studio just south of downtown. But on any hike, her eyes always wander to weeds, seeds, feathers, insect wings and other remnants that others might consider detritus. She scoops them into her sun hat or another container and, back in her studio, will examine her collection under a microscope to study colors, textures, forms and patterns. Quickly she envisions the reshaping of the materials into cast-resin wall pieces or columns. In a days-long process, she manipulates these revered objects from nature into precise patterns. Then she suits up with protective clothing and eyewear to apply at least a few coats of resin. Detail work with saws and sanders follows, until the pieces radiate an unexpected, ethereal beauty. Even the tiniest of objects reemerge as part of spirals, circles, crescents, ripples and more. As far as Kratz is concerned, desert flora and fauna hold limitless possibilities for reinterpretation in her works. The desert climate is key, as the dryness helps preserve objects, while the wide-open spaces offer more possibilities. Some of the more unusual items that have made their way into her studio include a bobcat's spine, wasp's gall, the mold of a brown pelican skull, rattlesnake ribs, and cactus blooms. It's possible to stare at her work and not grasp the materials she's used, as in a wall plaque bearing unrecognizable Mexican bird of paradise seeds, carefully compacted into a brown wreath, or when long shafts of wild grass turn into a thick mandala.… read more

Spiraling up through the center of the Big Springs Gallery at the Springs Preserve, Stephen Hendee's "Thermal" defines the heart of Desert Chromaticity. The crystalline column of light extends dramatically from the floor right up to the arc of light fixtures hanging from the ceiling above. Golden yellows emanate from the base of the monolith, softening warmly as they skim the rich hardwood floors. Moving up the column, yellow shifts to orange. Just as the light turns a deep magenta, the form intersects the dark shimmering metal of a suspended architectural plane. Cool tones ricochet across the metallic surface, creating a purpley-pink haze along the ceiling of the gallery. Contained within "Thermal" is the full spectrum of a desert sunset.… read more

In physics, there is the awe of the very large and the matching wonder of the infinitesimal: galaxies and quarks. And there is a rough mirror symmetry. In one there are electrons orbiting a nucleus, in the other, there are planets orbiting a star. Sometimes, the imagery can conflate. In either case, the scale of beauty simply takes no note of human existence, yet because of that, defines human existence.… read more

Mayme Kratz has made a 21st-century "Starry Night" in resin and root. Vincent Van Gogh might have used oils and canvas for his midnight-blue masterpiece, but Kratz used earthy materials for her "Light of Blue 1." Her translucent resin on board is colored a stellar blue, and little bits of the plant radiate through this celestial plane like so many twinkling stars.… read more