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The daughter of a Georgia sharecropper/slave, Mamie Lee Schatz used a stick to draw simple geometric designs she called “Love Knots” in the sand when she was a young girl. “In all my years, I have never forgotten my love knot,” said Schatz, 64. “I designed the love knot to illustrate the completeness of our lives and ambitions. The love knot is a symbol that applies to everything. For everything there is a completion.”
About seven years ago, this self-taught artist began to paint seriously, inspired by her love knots, to explore geometric abstractions. She has made her debut as an artist with a solo exhibit at the San Antonio Central Library Art Gallery. With bright, bold primary colors, her geometric forms are mostly composed of straight lines, but the lines zig and zag in unexpected ways, creating optical illusions in her large scale canvases.
“From my early experience, I gained the desire to find my place in the world,” Schatz said. “My place is the organization, structure, control and paint large, colorful, geometric renditions.”
