Today we’d like to introduce you to Kate Holcomb Hale.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
As a kid growing up in Buffalo, NY I was constantly drawing. My first impressions of art were formed at the Albright Knox Art Gallery. Paintings by Robert Rauschenberg, Lee Krasner, Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler are still etched in my memory from childhood. I made art all throughout elementary, middle and high school. Yet when I got to college, I felt pressure to pursue something more concrete so I studied communications. I actually moved to Boston to work for an advertising agency. I quickly became disenchanted with advertising though and started night classes at SMFA and Mass Art. Wanting a truly immersive art school experience, I sought out grad school. In 2008, I completed my MFA at Maine College of Art in Portland.
I continued to make are post-grad. I curated and directed a public video art project in Harvard Square for a year. I also got married and gave birth to my two sons. Art took a backseat to motherhood for me until my youngest became enrolled in elementary school. Since that time, I have more fully embraced my practice and found success getting my artwork into exhibits in Boston and the New England area. I was particularly proud to have a piece selected by Paul Ha as “Best in Show” in the CAA National Prize Show in 2016. It was affirming and a reminder that despite some speed bumps, I know when I’m able to focus on my practice I can have impact with my work. I spent this past year as a member of Bromfield Gallery in the South End. I’m a member of an amazing and supportive artist collaborative called Boston Critique Group. I also do private instruction in my studio in Arlington, MA where I live with my husband and sons.
Please tell us about your art.
My art making subverts traditional boundaries of drawing and painting merging paper, charcoal and paint with architecture. Drawing is the backbone of my work – each installation begins with a large-scale charcoal drawing. My compositions develop as I build line and marks with charcoal and then erase and blur edges. I then tear and cut away at the edges in an attempt to move away from the rectangular form of the paper. Eventually I’m satisfied with the resulting new shape. I begin to sculpt the paper in space tacking it onto the walls and ceilings, allowing the drawing to curl in on itself or even hover above the floor. I manipulate the drawing until I feel like it activates the site where I’m installing it. Typically, I am attracted to corners and interesting architecture moments. Once the drawing is situated I bring in more charcoal and acrylic paint and expand the drawing onto the surrounding walls and ceiling.
This body of work explores how emotions can extend beyond the realm of the internal and can manifest themselves in our physical world. Each installation captures an instant when one’s subjectivity shifts due to loss, trauma or any significant life event. The titles of my installations “Is the fluid draining?”, “I very totally had dreams last night” and “And neither are we” reference these psychological fractures that compile throughout a lifetime shaping one’s identity. The artist Anne Truitt described her own work as “…attempts to catch the threshold of consciousness, the point at which the abstract nature of events become perceptible.” I can relate to this challenge as I’m attempting to capture/make visible a barely perceptible psychic shift with each work I create.
As an artist, how do you define success and what quality or characteristic do you feel is essential to success as an artist?
I feel that growth and risk-taking are essential for success as an artist. Personally, I want to see my work continue to evolve and change. I’m always shaking up my approach so that the work never feels stale or pre-conceived. I’ve also come to realize that this cannot happen working alone in my studio. It requires the context of other artists, art worlds and outside perspectives. Witnessing an exciting exhibition, listening to an amazing lecture, reading criticism or being part of an engaging conversation about art fuels my practice. I get energized by the insights I glean from dialogue/experience which ultimately propels my art making practice in new directions.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
This fall I will have a solo show at Co-Creative Space in New Bedford. The exhibition runs from Sept 13- October 11. In Spring 2019 I will be in a 2-person exhibit alongside Emily Brodrick at the Envoy Hotel in Boston sponsored by the Fort Point Arts Community. The show is entitled, Be/Come, and it features several mixed-media installations that will be continually unfolding over the course of several weeks. The community of Boston and Fort Point will be invited to come on 4 designated evenings to witness, collaborate and document the moments of becoming that occur when an artwork is transformed in and by the space of the gallery.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.KateHolcombHale.com
- Email: katehale@ymail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/kateholcombhale
- Facebook: facebook.com/kateholcombhale
Image Credit:
Michael Piazza Photography
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