Artist's Statement

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My slow cumulative working process usually begins with a single image or line of text.

It can feel like fumbling in the dark with each day’s work an act of faith that the whole thing will eventually make some kind of sense.  Gradually a pattern emerges, in the piece as well as in the working process.

Inspiration comes from the experience of engaging with mechanisms for accumulating knowledge (measuring, recording, comparing), especially knowledge of the natural world. Thinking about what we decide is and is not important. What are we leaving out – not bothering to collect or consider-what are the shapes/patterns that these negative spaces – gaps in knowledge – might make?

My work is based in drawing- often drawing ink applied with a brush over graphite on paper or found printed matter - and continues to include text - sometimes as a sub-layer, sometimes as phrases or lists in artists’ books sometimes as ambiguous letter shapes.

Use of digital processes continues to provide new opportunities for playing with scale, transparency and connection - especially in combination with low tech manipulation of materials.

Despite the use of text and references to facts, this work is not about offering answers.
This work is about careful observation. It is about remaining open to ambiguous possibilities.

It is about seeking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kate Kern, Visual Artist
Resumé

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With an MFA in drawing from the University of Cincinnati and a BFA in fine Art from the University of Dayton I make, exhibit, and sell drawings, artists’ books, and installations. 

 

Image: Kate Kern in front of her piece "1000 Eyes" at Semantics Gallery, "Sour Princesses" exhibition
Photo credit: Debbie Brod

 

Recent Solo exhibitions include:

• Small World, Aisle Gallery Cincinnati, OH, 2010
• Always and Everywhere, Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, OH
• Attract Year Round Beauty Weston Art Gallery, Aronoff Center for the Arts, Cincinnati, OH
  

My work has been included in group exhibitions at:

• Semantics Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
• Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
• The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC
• AG Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
• SPACES, Cleveland,OH
• Riffe Gallery, Columbus, OH
• Wooster College Art Museum, Wooster OH
• and others.
  

In 2009 I was selected as a finalist in the Cincinnati Art Museum’s inaugural 4th Floor Biennial Award for contemporary art. I have received artists’ fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council and Arts Midwest.

Artists’ Project Grants have been received from the City of Cincinnati, the Ohio Arts Council and Summerfair.

My work is in regional and national collections, including:

• Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio
• Getty Research Institute, LA, CA
• Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
• MOMA/Franklin Furnace  Artist Book Collection, Museum of Modern Art Library, NYC
• University of Cincinnati Artists’ Book Collection, Cincinnati, OH

For a complete resume, click here.

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