ArtPrize 2024 Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 
Grand Rapids, MI -  West Michigan native and Purple Heart veteran John T. Katerberg brings his latest light-bending union of traditional painting and metal work to ArtPrize 2024. 

The five-foot tall, eight-foot wide, acrylic and oil painting is on solid brass and weighs a whopping 104 lbs. Titled Dynamic Sunset, the piece depicts a sunset storm battering the Grand Haven Lighthouse. Oil and acrylic captures the lighthouse, dark clouds, and waves in dramatic oranges and blues while the brass is buffed to portray the light peeking through the clouds and reflecting off the waves. Dynamic Sunset will exhibit at The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum for ArtPrize 2024 from September 13-28. 

Dynamic Sunset is Katerberg’s largest and most difficult undertaking to date. Chief among them, the weight and unpredictability of the metal. The piece required welding, sanding, clear coating, and finding the right materials to adhere to the metal. He was even hospitalized for two days after one of the metal sheets fell and badly sliced his shin. 

“This is still an experimental technique and I need to come up with unique ways to solve technical problems. I’m not giving up when I come to a roadblock and think I’m going to fail, I just keep going” Katerberg said. 

He credits his time in the United States Army for giving him both the mindset and the mechanical ability to tackle this physically and mentally challenging art style. Katerberg first learned to weld, working on damaged vehicles during Operation Desert Storm. 

“You come up against a lot of adversity in the military. It comes down to personal grit, you’ve just got to do it,” he said. 

A lifetime artist and graduate of Kendall College of Art and Design, Katerberg learned to grind and buff metal working as a factory metal finisher for seven years. “I have to use the skills I learned during the hard parts of life to make beautiful things,” he said. Katerberg is adamant that the beauty and expression of Dynamic Sunset can only be experienced in person.

“It’s really the only way to see it. The piece is designed to have an animated effect. I call it Dynamic Sunset because the sky and the water seem to move. You really don’t get the full effect of the painting unless you are in front of it,” he said.

Dynamic Sunset will be displayed, free to the public, on the main floor of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum from Friday, September 13th to Saturday the 28th.

More about John and his work can be found at Art4Eternity.com. He can be reached for comment at: jtkaterberg@gmail.com.