Bio

“Katherine Love explores a world that is the particular domain of women, invoking through an array of icons—dolls, food, birds and other creatures of the world of nature—as well as through a variety of materials and techniques—household fabrics and needlework combined with oil and encaustic—the spaces of the feminine. Approached by Love with a mixture of irony and affection, the layered contours of these spaces, pictorial and psychic, are also shaped by the tensions inherent in the negotiation between response to gender and truth to self, between acquiescence to social expectations for women, and the unfettered cultivation of individual personhood.”
       — Marcia Morse

Most recently Love’s artworks have been influenced by old cookbooks and domestic science texts from the 1920s to the 1960s. Continuing an exploration of traditional women’s roles in society, these works refer to certain food-preparation techniques (such as Jello molds) as well as the expectations for domestic work placed on women in the past as well as today.

After reading excerpts from the old textbooks and cookbooks, Love was struck by how young women were expected to become housewives and excel at food preparation as well as other household jobs and how women’s self esteem came largely from what they did for their family. The binding and cutting of meat, rolling of dough, mixing of cake batter, and the pounding and kneading of bread can be seen as metaphors for how women are pushed and pulled in different directions.

In her paintings, pre-printed fabrics develop the composition and also provide a conceptual connection to historically female tasks such as laundry, ironing and sewing. Household materials such as curtains, sheets, lace, doilies, and floral patterns refer to domesticity, while embroidery and sewing are particularly time-consuming crafts that women were expected to practice. Additionally, many of the colors used in the paintings come from the old, slightly discolored illustrations in the cookbooks and reference the 1950s. Love is interested in the duality within herself between the acceptance and embracing of certain traditional roles, and needing to question that which she is willing to perform and include in her life.