Kathryn Knudsen
About the Artist
Kathryn works and lives in Utah. She attended Utah State University in Logan, Utah, where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. She also earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Brigham Young University, where she taught in the Studio Arts program.
Artist Statement
“Kathryn’s art utilizes a variety of traditional media, abstract forms, and found objects to produce an artistic vision that can heal, refashion, and beautify. The result–an unpredictable labyrinth of oil paint, canvas, fabric, thread, paper, beads, and other materials–is as luminous as it is provocative, a flash of the unconscious, a dream, a moment of deja vu. Picking up objects that might otherwise languish in scrap heaps, second-hand clothing stores, or boxes of discarded papers, fabrics, and memories, Kathryn’s art reintegrates the power of transformed media with therapeutic promise of beauty and artistic experience. In these paintings, sculptures, and installations, the possibility of refashioning the world of discarded consumption becomes an artistic reality, something more than an aspiration, a wholly new experience in itself. To experience Kathryn’s art is to realize that the very fabric of our culture and everyday lives can be recast and reclaimed, just as nature does in its endless march of life and desire. The oddness of the human figures, the opalescence of the textures, the quirkiness of the colors–all of these are the life blood of a culture revised. It is a vision in which nothing–no memories, no tradition, no promise–is beyond reclamation.”
— John Williams, Professor of Humanities, Yale University
How do you interpret “Ready to Wear” in your work?
I often think about the history of clothing, where it came from, who was involved in the making of it. I’m at times troubled by how society takes clothing for granted. We live in a time of fast fashion. Clothes are cheap and easy to access. Often we tend to forget the histories and stories behind our clothing. Each item we wear comes from raw materials that have been extracted, harvested, woven, manipulated and ultimately sewn into the things we decide to put on each day. I’m interested in the histories of these items that are at times so carelessly tossed aside. I ask the questions, where did these materials come from, how far did they travel, how many people were involved in it’s making? In my work I strived to demonstrate the intricate stories behind the making of clothing and try to celebrate the work and materials used.
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