Pita Plastica
A few weeks after the Brand family’s arrival in Guatemala, Kurtis wanted to start creating art again after a short break. He thought about painting, but it didn’t feel exactly right and the materials that he was used to using were either impossible to find or extremely expensive. So he decided to wait for inspiration. It soon came when he was passing by a local tienda and saw this brightly colored nylon twine hanging in the window. He bought a few rolls and took it back to the treehouse where he was working and thought about what to make with it. He decided to use it to create some wall art by wrapping it around a wood frame he had found in town. The results were pleasing so he began to source wood from the area to make a few stretchers to support the pita. Finding dry wood proved exceptionally difficult, but he finally found some and had it shipped by truck and then by boat from the closest city 3 hours away. It was worth it.
He created a few compositions and had an assistant from a neighboring pueblo help him build the frames while he figured out a way to attach the pita. He finally come upon a method and started creating the work that would start his profound artistic journey in Guatemala.
The compositions were congruent with the colorful search series he created a few months later in that they were minimal and brightly colored geometric compositions, a far cry from the abstract paintings he was making in New York just a few months before.
