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Current Group Exhibition
Let Strange Flowers Burst Forth: The Wild Nature of Inspiration a.Muse Art Gallery June 13, 2012 - August 1, 2012 Closing Tea & Poetry Reading Sunday, July 29, 2012 3:00 - 5:00 PM |
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As a child, Kathryn Kain’s precocious and imaginative creative spirit was supported fully by her mother, a prominent Toledo artist, who, with Kathryn in hand, utilized the resources of The Toledo Museum of Art. Exposed to the fine collections of this Mid-western gem of a museum by their frequent visits and classes, Kathryn recognized that her path would be that of an artist. During her years as a high school student she was fortunate to be able to participate in the museum art classes offered by Toledo University. After graduation Kain studied art at the Cleveland Art Institute and Arizona State University before making a final move to Northern California where she completed her BFA at San Jose State College. It was at San Jose State College that she first embraced the multifaceted world of printmaking. Two years of independent study with master printmakers Kenjilo Nanao and Misch Kohn followed at Cal State Hayward prior to earning an MFA in printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1988 reinforcing Kain’s exceptional adaptation to printmaking.
Kathryn Kain’s large light filled studio at Hunter’s Point Shipyard in San Francisco offers the space for painting, printmaking, and mixed-media collage. It is a place that supports her love of drawing offering found and scavenged images that combine and weave into unique prints. Recently she has focused on drawing the plants from a hillside near her studio that is housed in an abandoned military housing neighborhood which had been untouched for 25 years. Targeted for redevelopment, the hillside was a secret place off limits to all working in the shipyard. The impending demolition of the old houses and wild gardens challenged Kain to spend as much time as possible visiting and collecting branches from the various plants and vine covered buildings. These recent art works reflect an inner recognition of the silent, abandoned and very private paradise offered by the old fruit trees and the birds flying in the canopies of this hidden Eden. Focusing on botanical forms that refer and connect to an assortment of found or borrowed images; Kathryn Kain creates a composition that is loosely narrative in character. Objects from nature are portrayed realistically, but located in a shallow free-floating space. The play between drawings and found imagery often involves themes related to food, femininity, domesticity and traditional roles associated with women. She is fascinated with portrayals of women in popular media, especially vintage Americana. Three fruits: an apple, a quince or a pomegranate have been called the original fruit of temptation in the biblical story of the fall from Paradise – these became a starting point for drawings and collages based on the myth of Eve and its pagan precursors. What followed was a deepening of the ritualistic practice of drawing natural objects at close range. For Kathryn, the drawing is a meditation; the objects become receptacles of feelings. As a master printer, Kathryn Kain has worked at the Ernest DeSoto Workshop in San Francisco and as the Master Printer at the Smith Anderson Editions in Palo Alto where artists of international reputation are invited to work with her and where unique and experimental monotypes are produced. She has taught at Bluffton College in Ohio, The San Francisco Art Institute, Dominican University and Stanford University in the Bay Area, and at the Anderson Ranch Art Center in Colorado. Her award winning drawing and collage monotypes have been shown across the United States and in Mexico. Many museums have exhibited her work including the Toledo Museum of Art, The Triton Museum, The De-Saisset Museum, The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, The Oakland Museum of California Art, The Nevada Museum of Art, El Ex-Convento del Carmen in Guadalajara and at the Galeria Irma Valerio in Zacatecas. Jacquelin Pilar, Curator Fresno Art Museum February 2009 |
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