• Site Lines: Joshua Tree

    Digital print on aluminum
      |  2019

  • Site Lines

    Video projection, rear view mirrors
      |  2019

  • Site Lines

    Vinyl, postcards, reflective glass
      |  2019

  • Don't Tread: I Improve

    Inkjet on Silk, Brass fasteners
      |  2018

  • Don't Tread: I Improve

    Rudbeckia, Terra Cotta, Inkjet on Silk
      |  2018

  • William Henry Jackson's Sky

    Watercolor on Yupo
      |  2017

  • Cease and Desist Karaoke

    Custom Karaoke, Halloween Masks
      |  2016

  • History Repeats Itself

    Risograph on paper
      |  2016

  • Listen to Wolf

    Found video, balloons
      |  2016

KATIE HARGRAVE Website CV

Chattanooga, TN | Sculpture, Mixed Media, Time-based, Performance, Installation, Video
Bio:

Katie Hargrave (b. 1985 Chicago, resides Chattanooga, TN) is interested in the production of American identity through politics, history, mythology, and narrative. Her work elevates stories from popular culture, those hidden in the archives, and the everyday conversations from passerby’s and participants. Hargrave is a professor of art at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga. She received her MFA in Intermedia and Drawing from the University of Iowa, MA from Brandeis University, and BFA from the University of Illinois. Her work has been shown at Proof Gallery in Boston; Gallerie Analix in Geneva, Switzerland; the Manifesta Biennial in Murcia, Spain; The Philadelphia Art Alliance, and the Athens Institute of Contemporary Art, to name a few.

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Statement:

As an artist, I am interested in a poetic and quiet activism that can exist within the history and politics of life in the United States. Each day the decisions, thoughts and actions we make accrue meaning. It is rarely evident and often hard to imagine, but these tiny moments that fill up our past collectively create our current realities. Using archival and community-sourced research, I make artworks that ideally allow the audience to see themselves as shapers of systems as broad as the environment, the historical record, American political thought. We all have power; we all own this history.

I create physical and metaphorical platforms in my installations—from newspapers to dinner tables to stages for participation. My process begins with a story, a site, or a question; develops with visits to local libraries, county fairs, and historical sites; and is complicated by interviewing locals and questioning so-called experts. The outcome of my research varies in every project, including fiber, performance, printed matter, installation, sound, and video. Regardless of the media I use, I ask viewers to write their part of the story rather than simply observing. I invite them to become performers having conversations at dinner parties, waving flags, playing games, or planting a tree. Together, we can complicate and unpack the narratives of everyday life and begin to realize that the construction of history is made up of precious fragments that can be reordered in any way we like.

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