Katherine Kennedy (Barbados)
Artist Statement: My practice has always been tied to a sense of place, using sculpture, installation and video to create interplay between organic and inorganic materials, interrogating the spectrum of identity, belonging and displacement in different environments. The ‘environment’ comprises not only nature, but the manmade and the social fabric of different locales. Relationships between naturally occurring elements and processes and the many facets of daily life interest me; how can these be understood, interrupted or intertwined to highlight differences and similarities across perceived borders?
Unashamed expressions of femininity are laced throughout my work. They manifest in my processes, materials, and the desire to circumvent stereotypical tropes, while remaining introspective about my own position within these constructs. The use of domestic and personal objects, exaggerated ornamentation and shadows are recurring motifs in my pieces, used as layered reminders that no given space is one dimensional, and that there is always more to interpret beneath the surface.
Bio: Katherine Kennedy is a Barbadian artist and writer. She graduated with a BA in Creative Arts (First Class Hons.) from Lancaster University, UK, and has exhibited locally, regionally and internationally in Barbados, London, Glasgow, the USA, Aruba, Jamaica, Nigeria and New Zealand to date. She currently works for the Fresh Milk Art Platform in Barbados as the Communications and Operations Manager, and has contributed to ARC Magazine of contemporary Caribbean art as a Writer, Editor and the Assistant to Director. Through these platforms, she has coordinated and managed programmes such as five editions of the Caribbean Linked residency & exhibition programme at Ateliers ’89, Aruba, and the biennial Transoceanic Visual Exchange (TVE) international video, film and new media exhibition.
She has undertaken projects and residencies at the Insituto Buena Bista (IBB), Curaçao (2012); The Vermont Studio Center, USA (2013); Casa Tomada, Brazil (2013); Akademie Schloss Solitude, Germany (2014); and Punch Creative Arena, Barbados (2019 & 2020). Her written work has been published with platforms such as Sugarcane Magazine (Volume 1, Issue No. 3) and Robert & Christopher Publishers in the A-Z of Caribbean Art (2019). She made her debut as a solo-curator with the exhibition Social Geometry: Expanded Drawing Practices by Barbadian Artists at the Queen’s Park Gallery, Barbados in May 2019.