Kathleen King:” Strong Ties ” ASHER GREY GALLERY Opens September 1, 2022
This exhibition of painted wood assemblages and works on paper by Bay Area artist Kathleen King looks at personal encounters and social connections in the current digital age.
Strong Ties is an ongoing series of assemblages handmade from discarded wood. Using a simple construction method, pieces of wood are attached and held together with other scrap pieces. A design is created from the functional placement of these connectors. The series exposes minimalism’s smooth logic of reductive geometry and color to materials that have organic form, texture and a narrative history. Although this work is made from recycled materials, it is not about re-use. The series asks questions about the exploitation and wasted lives that global and digital systems create. It demonstrates the importance of maintaining a strong solidarity–a care network–to protect ourselves and our authentic human relationships.
Enclosure/Encounter is a series of charcoal drawings on paper made during the 2020-21 COVID quarantine period. Proposing an abstract language based on Google Maps these works explore a psychogeographic landscape of isolation and the desire for the intimacy of touch and breath.
Kathleen King was born in Oakland, CA and works in Berkeley, CA. She is a visual artist focusing on assemblage, sculpture and installation. Her work explores states of coexistence, contingency and control, drawing attention to how we make our social environments and how we are made by them. In May 2022, King had a solo exhibition, An Event in the Form of Questions, at Mercury 20 Gallery in Oakland, CA. In 2020, she had a solo exhibition at Pro Arts Gallery + Commons in Oakland and the gallery published a catalog Kathleen King: Aided, Inspired, Multiplied.
