All works on this site are
copyright © Kate Kretz.
All laws of intellectual property apply and will be enforced.
NEWS
The most recent work produced can be viewed here.
Kate will be giving a lecture on her work Friday, March 25th, at 5:30 p.m. in the Katherine Woltz reception room of Rebekah Scott Hall at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta.
Kate's work was recently included in the documentary, "The Second Tear: Kitsch" for NDR/arte German Public Television, directed by Tink Diaz of Tag/Traum Filmproduktion.
The New York Times mentions Kate's work in their review of "Pricked: Extreme Embroidery".
The New York Times mentions Kate's work in their review of "Dress Codes: Clothing in Contemporary Art."
"Blessed Art Thou" is included in the following university textbooks & scholarly publications:
- "Media & Society", J. Stadler & M. O'Shaughnessy, Oxford University Press Australia
- "De celebrity-supermarkt", Hilde Van den Bulck & Sil Tambuyzer, EPO Press, Belgium (cover)
-"The Generosity of Wisdom", William J Jackson, PhD, Baylor University Press
- "Essentials of Argument 6e " Nancy V Wood, PhD, Prentice Hall Press
- Journal "Tyr Myth-Culture-Tradtion Vol. 3", Ultra Press
- "Edentity", Stephanie Vie, ed., Fountainhead Press
Kate's hair embroideries will be featured in a new foundations textbook, "Foundations, The Fundamentals of Art and Design", to be published by Pearson Prentice Hall Press, and "1000 Artisan Textiles", to be published by Quarry Books.
Kate's painting, "Blessed Art Thou", was exhibited at the Art Miami Fair, January 5-8, 2007. The painting was covered by over 130 news sources, including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, The International Herald Tribune, and the New York Times. Complete list of press coverage for the painting is here.
Detailed images of Blessed Art Thou.
Reviews, catalogs, and interviews are available for downloading on the Reviews page.
"Grace & Shame" catalogs may be purchased from Amazon here.
Kate is currently working in her studio full-time in the Washington, DC, area, giving lectures & critiques as a visiting artist at various universities.
RECENT/UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
"Separation Anxiety "
Curated by Denise Johnson & Rebecca Trawick
Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Oct 11 - Nov 13, 2010
"Beyond Re/Production: Mothering"
Curated by Felicita Reuschling
Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin
Feb 26 - Apr 25, 2011
"Myself"
Curated by Marji Vecchio
Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno
Jan 18 - Feb 18, 2011
"My Sweet Sweet..."
Curated by Lisa Alembik
Dalton Gallery, Agnes Scott College, Atlanta, GA
Feb 3 - Mar 14, 2011
"Silver: Points of Departure "
Curated by Carol Prusa
Tinney Contemporary, Nashville, TN
June 25 - July 30, 2011
SELECTED CRITICAL REVIEWS
"With a bluntly primal wit, Kretz claws at the guts......"
- Carlos Suarez De Jesus, MIAMI NEW TIMES
“Kate Kretz embroiders pillowcases with eyelashes and human hair... the result is both delicate and creepy... ”
- Karen Rosenberg, NEW YORK TIMES
“Few acts of sexual and romantic love are as oppressive and shocking as Kretz's triumphantly perverse sewn tributes to maternal overinvestment. ”
- Felicia Feaster, ArtscriticATL.com
“Kate Kretz’s paintings are explorations of identity in various states of extremity, symbolized by the often dramatic or downright lurid effects of light (These effects, incidentally, are what distinguish Kretz as an exceptionally promising younger artist.)”
- Jerry Cullum, ART PAPERS
“Lush and luminous, paintings by Kate Kretz speak of dreamy nighttime worlds alive with possibilities and portents. “Beauty Wrest” is her show of painstakingly, immaculately crafted oil paintings....”
- Elisa Turner, MIAMI HERALD
“Powerfully resonant and enticingly complex, Kretz’s paintings are crafted - one might almost say wrought - with an exquisite detail that draws the viewer in, unfolding before the viewer’s gaze, and only with an investment of time and effort....”
- Nora Heimann, PhD, Catholic University, Beauty Wrest catalog
"The paintings of Kate Kretz.... have the power to stop people in their tracks."
- Candice Russell, CITYLINK
"Kretz’s work is decidedly literary... everything plays against other elements and viewer expectation and experience to create stories capable of penetrating the television-addled consciousness of contemporary viewers.”
- Neil Herring, ART PAPERS
"It's unusual in this TV/Internet/YouTube age for a painting to captivate the nation, but that's exactly what Kate Kretz did with her piece, 'Blessed Art Thou'... "
- Adam Bernard, FOAM Magazine
“With the skill of a Caravaggio and the mindset of a Gloria Steinem, Kate Kretz paints disturbing images of the emotional life of women.....”
- Verna Safran, thl.yourvillage.com
“Edgy, seductive, work of a most unusual artist.....miraculous beauty.... How typically clever of the artist to take a conventional genre and turn it upside down. But then there is cleverness throughout this welcome exhibition.”
- Candice Russell, CITY LINK
"Kre(n)tz traffics in the unspoken and unacknowledged, even the private thoughts that can be our own undoing..."
- Cate McQuaid, THE BOSTON GLOBE
“The erie glow that emanates from so many of the canvases...is a result of being raised ‘on a regimen of Catholicism and Technicolor movies.’ It’s an odd but apt convergence of influences, with the conflicting impulses of the Vatican and Hollywood coming together to create the emotional turbulence and instability that always seem to lurk just below the deceptively calm surfaces of Kretz’s images.”
- Michael Mills, NEW TIMES MIAMI
“Tableaux as portentous as ones assembled by David Lynch; details of light and shadow combined with dramatic elements of color and composition...”
- Jerry Cullum, ART PAPERS
"Kate Kretz...wowing viewers in a variety of media, from oil on canvas to sculpted bas-relief encaustic to embroidery. Her obsessive, detail-oriented images pull us into their magnetic orbit."
- "Best Bets", NEWS & OBSERVER
"Kate Kretz's paintings are amazing. Realistic and phantasmagoric, she details every inch of the canvas with ardent descriptions of past and present. Her palette is spectoral and the images she paints in both oils and acrylics show her mastery of the craft."
- Margurite Gil, MIAMI SUNPOST
"Kate Kretz's solo exhibition was another display of her impressive work... her work in two & three dimensions is highly taut with emotion that is complex and sensitive."
- Onajide Shabaka, MIAMI ART EXCHANGE
"These astonishing "pillow drawings" are as affecting for their execution as for the way they unblatently describe a psychological maelstrom."
- Elisa Turner, MIAMI HERALD
“Kate Kretz... known for labor-intensive art of intellectual heft.”
- Candice Russell, CITY LINK
Complete reviews and downloadable catalogs are on the Reviews page.
STATEMENT
One of the functions of art is to strip us bare, reminding us of the fragility common to every human being across continents and centuries. Often, I will meet someone, and the visible weight of his or her life becomes almost unbearable to me, it rips me open. The objects that I make are an attempt to articulate this feeling.
I give birth to the tactile as I am swallowed by the virtual. I obsess over craft as our world becomes disposable. I wield emotion in its messiness because it's uncool. I work until my hands shake, because the world does not care.
I am banging my head against the wall, but the stain is beautiful.