'Shelter Me’ by Kat Howard
'Shelter Me’ by Kat Howard
Shelter Me, 2022, from Talismans series by Kat Howard.
Milkweed pods, Cotton thread and wax. H. 2” W.12” x D.8”. Certificate of authenticity.
Conceived as a series of protective talismans, or incantations to guard against fear, these objects each claim to do something that they fall short of achieving. Each sculpture is made of a different type of seedpod, an object that typically holds the potential for growth. However in this series, the seeds have been made incapacitated. These talismans are meant to ask what are the protections we all have in place that may no longer be serving us?
Kat Howard (1984, Rochester, NY). Howard Is a fiber artist focused on the perception of the female body viewed through the lens of history. She works with raw materials and textures to create mesmerizing wall structures.
Howard earned a BA in Creative Writing and Art History from Brandeis University in 2006, and worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art until 2010, when she left the museum world to pursue MFAs in Studio Art and Poetry, which she received from Mills College in 2013. Since graduating, Howard has been working as an independent artist exhibiting her art, mentoring, and teaching. She lives and works in the Hudson Valley.
Recent Exhibitions and Collections: Kat Howard (1984, Rochester, NY). Howard Is a fiber artist whose art interrogates how the body carries trauma. She works with raw natural materials and visceral textures to create mesmerizing sculptures and large scale installations.
Recent Exhibitions and Collections:
Solo show, I Must Like it If I Stay, O+ , Kingston, NY 2021. Featured Artist, Kips Bay Showhouse, Palm Beach, FL 2022. Solo Show, Tanja Grunert Gallery, Hudson, NY (Forth coming), Solo Show, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY(Forth coming). Solo show, Title of Work, New York, N. (Forth coming).
Private Collection: Beth Rudin deWoody, The Bunker, FL.
For custom size, lead time is 6-8 weeks.
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Kat Howard Is a fiber artist focused on the perception of the female body viewed through the lens of history. She works with raw materials and textures to create mesmerizing wall structures. Howard lives and works in the Hudson Valley.
Her work addresses the history of the persecution of women, through which, she interrogates her own identity as a survivor of abuse and sexual violence. She uses abstraction, the innate emotional language of texture, and the repulsion/attraction of touch in her visual work to capture the fight to break free from trauma. Howard’s pieces either have a physicality to them that feels almost human, or they are expressionist representations of landscapes where the individual is noticeably absent. There is an emphasis on the sense memory we collectively have with textiles. Her material choices are integral to her tactile artistic concept — ranging from silkworm cocoons and merino wool roving to hand-spun yarn, raw cotton, leather, and muslin.
Howard’s artwork is an intimate exploration of gender and gender roles, sexism, and oppression, asking the questions: what happens to the body when it is forced to become a vessel for trauma? In what ways do we physically carry pain? How is the self altered afterwards?