Porcelain sculptures that are hand-built are Kate Macdowell’s unique art pieces. They present amazing details of parts of the human body or animals or birds that are finished off with flowing flowers and leaves. They are supposed to show the frictions and rifts between man and nature and environmental threats and their consequences, but they actually also show beauty and the way things should be rather than the bad environmental results that exist in today’s world. Additionally, the sculptures borrow from art history, myth, figures of speech and cultural touchstones.
Kate hand sculpts every piece out of porcelain and often starts with a solid form and then hollows it out. Smaller forms are built branch by branch or petal by petal. She has chosen porcelain for what she feels is its strength, ability to show fine texture, and its ghostly and luminous qualities.
Based out of Portland, OR, Kate Macdowell’s work has been shown throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. She was recently an artist in residence at the Kohler Arts & Industry Program, was a participant in an artist residency at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Maine, and will again have entries in group exhibits this year. Pictures of her sculptures have been published in various journals and periodicals. In addition to being in a multitude of group exhibitions, she has had solo exhibitions in galleries in Seattle, Miami, Sheboygan, and Portland.
Kate has worked and lived in various cultures and environments that have ended up influencing the way she perceives the world. She has taught in urban high schools, volunteered in rural India at a meditation retreat center, produced websites in a high-tech corporate environment, and has collected ideas from her travels through Italy, Greece, Thailand, and Nepal. She has studied ceramics full-time at several campuses and has also studied flame-worked glass.
Learn more on Kate Macdowell’s website
