Like many of Arrechea’s sculpture and installation works, Katrina Chairs began with a watercolor painting, A Few Days Before Katrina (Diálogo). Practical and immediate, watercolor is the artist’s primary medium. He cherishes the watercolor as the only part of his process that he shares with no other hands. His “Katrina” series includes the watercolors Levitate, Aire Húmedo, and Dialog II, each depicting the theme he realizes in Katrina Chairs. The titles refer to the hurricane in 2005 that slammed the U.S. Gulf Coast with winds of up to 127 miles per hour. Its flooding caused the breaching of some levees in New Orleans, leaving parts of the city under water and uninhabitable.
