ARTIST STATEMENT
We all have changing, memory-laden stories of lived, visited, and imagined places. Kathy’s work is oriented to this idea in its topobiographicality. Her work is a reflection of her memories and visions of places situated in landscape, while it addresses varied histories and current realities of climate change and human rights.
Kathy’s landscape compositions are layered with dreamlike elements, both translucent and opaque. The work is process and materially oriented, with drawing and collage at the center of her practice. She combines layers of abstraction and representation in acrylic, spray paint, color pencil, and collaged and assembled papers and objects, ranging from small and jewel-like to more significant in size. She uses myriad techniques, from wiping, sanding, cutting, printing, and copying, to direct painting and drawing.
Kathy has many influences from her 25 years as an art curator, including the Baroque as a sensibility, Surrealistic modes, decorative arts and craft impulses, photography, and the relationship between landscape/memory and the female artist-body.
Biography
In late 2017, Kathy left her 20-year curatorial position to make art full-time. Her successful exhibition and sales record includes solo and group exhibitions in Chicago, Provincetown, and Denver, among others. In 2022-23, Kathy received a grant from the Iowa Arts Council for a catalogue of her work. Although she has a wonderful studio in Iowa, Kathy was a resident at Edgewood Farm (Castle Hill, Truro, MA), Grand Marais Art Center, MN, and a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow. Her work is in the collection of University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, St. Ambrose University, and many private collections.
From 1998 to 2018, Kathy was a curator at University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art. From 1989 to 1998 she was director of The Print Center in Philadelphia. Her graduate degree is from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. Kathy has received many grants for her curatorial work from the National Endowment for the Arts to the Pew Charitable Trusts. Her writing is published extensively. Upon leaving the UISMA, Kathy and her husband established the Kathleen Edwards Purchase Fund for Contemporary Art by American Women.