about Kate
Born in Busan, Korea, Kate Bae is an independent curator and immigrant artist mainly working on site-specific installations and paintings based in New York City. Kate’s art practice is focused on multiple identities, memories, neuroses, and psychological borders. She holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in painting. Bae is a founder of Women’s Cactus for the Arts and has exhibited nationally and internationally including solo shows at the Sunroom Project Space in Wave Hill, Bronx, NY and the Deiglan Gallery in Akureyri, Iceland. She is a grant recipient from Real Art Award, MVP Chapter Lead Grant from Malikah Gender Justice Institute, Ora Lerman Trust, Creative Capital Professional Development Program and the NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. She has attended many residencies including the Golden Foundation, the Studios at Mass MoCA, Trestle Gallery, Wassaic Project, Chashama and Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder Residency among others.
Statement
I have been exploring skin as a concept in my work. When I was younger, I would pick the inner corner of my thumb trying to cope with stress - I learned that it’s called excoriation disorder. When I accidentally discovered that I can peel the dried acrylic paint rather than my own skin, I’ve realized that my neurosis can transform into beautiful things. I focus on the medium and the language of painting to create dialogues about multiple identities, history and my national background. Instead of painting with a brush, I cast and pour paint, then peel the paint bits and assemble them like a collage. The process ultimately changes the identity of painting into something else, not quite sculpture but not quite painting either — something in between the two- and three-dimensional planes, which parallels my experience as an immigrant, not fully being Korean nor American.
This process evolved into a long-term project called Language of Painting, and they often look like textiles in floral forms. The flowers are a representation of nature but also form systems of communication and ritual, a way to make sense of the disconnect between my home and the United States. I am interested in implementing the feeling of safe, warm and kind energy into installations, but with distortion of reality accompanied with sensory experience, like smell or touch to invoke certain memories. The yellow color is prevalent throughout my work because it’s associated with the yellow ribbon and its symbolic message “we will wait for your safe return until the end,” originally started as support for the US Army troops in WWII.