Wheelism
Hiya Swanheuyser
SF Weekly
June 2006
Katina Huston’s ink-on-Mylar drawings of bicycles – only bicycles- look startlingly like birch forests in winter. Such woods may be unfamiliar to Bay Areans used to wooly redwoods and chaparral, but back East, each individual tree stands calm and prim separated from its neighbors by plenty of space and light, reinforcing the precise specific shape of the next one. Alone a birch might appear unremarkable, but the repetition of angles has an odd magnifying effect, and that goes for Huston’s somberly patient two-wheelers as well. Of course, trees are not circular, nor do they hang or have pedals to render as if they were bones in an X-ray. The water color quality of Huston’s brownish-black ink makes color irrelevant: Everything takes a back seat to arches, tilts and a constant glowing white background.