Kathleen ElliotQuestionable Foods

Sculpture and Mixed Media

Questionable Foods, Mixed Fruits, 2018, Glass, recycled food packaging, artificial sinew, 20 x 29 x 7 inches

Questionable Foods, Bomb #1 (Froot Loops and Pebbles)2019Glass, candy, string9 x 8 x 8 inches

Questionable Foods, Bomb #2 (Skittles, Starburst, Airheads)2019Glass, candy16.5 x 8 x 8 inches

Questionable Foods, Bullet #2 (Jelly Beans and Kisses)2019Glass, candy18 x 3 inches

Questionable Foods, Bullet #3 (Lemonheads and Trolli)2019Glass, candy22 x 4 inches

Brown Pods2019Glass24.5 x 9 x 9 inches

How Much Is Enough? 2018glass, discarded food boxes, artificial sinew 25.5 x 12 x 10 inches

Questionable Foods,Blue Green Soda Cans2018Glass, recycled soda cans,copper 19 x 11 x 4.5 inches

Questionable Foods,Glyphosate Corn #22018Glass, recycled food packaging,artificial sinew24 x 23.5 x 6 inches

Questionable Foods,Water Cyclone #12018Glass, recycled waterbottles, artificial sinew32 x 25 inches

Questionable Foods #4,Strawberry2018Food packaging, artificialsinew, mixed media33 x 30 inches

Glyphosate Corn #32019Glass, mixed media5.5 x 26 inches

Sugar Children #9, Glass2019Glass, recycled food packaging, mixed media 23 x 31 x 9 inches

Questionable Foods, Sugar Children #12016Recycled food packages, paper, glue, archival sealant

Questionable Foods, Sugar Children #2 (Red, White and Blue Quilt Squares)2017Recycled food boxes, mixed media27 x 38 inches

Sugar Children #5 (Frito’s Shirt and Bagel Bites Blouse)2018Recycled food packaging, mixed media27 x 38 inches

Sugar Children #6 (Fritos and M&M’s skirt)2018Recycled food packaging, mixed media39.5 x 25 inches

Questionable Foods, Sugar Children #7, Ballet and Baseball2018Recycled food boxes, mixed media

Sugar Family #22019Recycled food boxes, mixed media 27 x 56 inches

Questionable Foods,Sugar Family #12017Discarded food boxes,mixed media31 x 62 inches

Questionable Foods,What’s In Your Mouth?2017Discarded food boxes,mixed media 30 x 52 inches

GMO Salmon2019Print16 x 30 inches

Assault GMO Corn2019Print10 x 30 inches

GMO Corn2019Print28 x 18 inches

Questionable Foods, Corn #22017Recycled food boxes, mixed media28 x 7 inches

Questionable Foods, Corn #32017Recycled food boxes, mixed media76 x 26 inches

We Want Your Money2019Recycled food boxes, mixed media33 ½  x 44 ½ inches

Questionable Foods,Flag #12018Recycled food boxes,mixed media 35 x 55 inches

Questionable Foods, USA2019Recycled food boxes, mixed media

Scenes From the Playground, Merry Go Round2019Recycled food boxes, mixed media22 x 28 inches

Scenes From the Playground, Slide2019Recycled food boxes, mixed media22 x 28 inches

Sugared As Fuck 2019Recycled food boxes, mixed media26 x 36 inches

Thank You, Next2019Recycled food boxes, mixed media35 x 26 inches

Commentary

From her home and studio in Cupertino, California, minutes from the Apple HQ, Kathleen Elliot draws on both contemporary American culture and the timeless natural world. In an art that reveals the influence of a highly diverse professional background—she spent time on a hippy commune before working as a hairstylist and make-up artist, administrator, corporate manager, educator, and writer—Elliot prompts us to question ethical codes and the patterning of everyday life. Working in extended series, she explores some of the ways in which we might interact with our surroundings in healthier and more empathetic ways.

Elliot’s “Natural Botanicals” is a series of sculptures of plant forms made by working the material directly with a flame, then adding color and texture with pigmented glass powder. This unique set of objects refers to the long tradition of representing plants life in painting and sculpture, celebrating the beauty and fragility of the environment that nurtured them. A subsequent set, “Imaginary Botanicals,” extends this theme into the realms of fiction, presenting hybrid organisms that narrate alternative worlds and possible futures. In both series, glass alternates between being immediately recognizable as such and standing in for wood and other components; this duality is echoed in the works’ intersecting conditions, in the way it is at once bold and delicate, critical and decorative, inventive and mimetic.

In a more recent series “Questionable Foods,” Elliot again makes use of glass but incorporates collage elements to address the developed world’s problematic relationship with nutrition and the political and economic manipulation that surrounds and shapes it. Using gaudily designed packaging from cereal, candy, and other products, she questions the promise of independence, flexibility, and fun they hold out. What, she asks, are the physical and societal costs of accepting commercial hype and prioritizing convenience over lasting health?

Kathleen Elliot

Biography

Best known for rich, delicate sculptures of botanical forms made from flameworked glass, Kathleen Elliot has recently expanded her practice into mixed-media and collage works that address the developed world’s problematic relationship with food and the industries that surround it.

Elliot was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1958. She moved with her family to California in 1960 and grew up in Silicon Valley, where she still lives and works. Fascinated by craft from early childhood, she taught herself a variety of techniques, and later undertook lengthy and extensive studies in philosophy, linguistics, and business strategy. She spent time on a commune before working for some years as a hairstylist and make-up artist, then as an administrator, corporate manager, educator, and writer, and has pursued her artistic career full-time since 2001.

Elliot tried working with glass for the first time in 1991, beginning by making beads, and has employed the material continuously ever since. She took her first glassblowing workshop in 1996 but most often uses flameworking, the application of a torch flame directly to the glass. She attended Pilchuck Glass School, founded by Dale Chihuly, in 2001, 2002, and 2003, studying with leading glass artists Laura Donefer, Shane Fero, and Robert Mickelsen, returning in 2013 as an instructor. She has also taken art courses at De Anza College.

In 2003, Elliot began making a series of glass sculptures titled “Natural Botanicals” based on plant forms such as braches and leaves. In 2007, she began also producing “Imaginary Botanicals,” a series focused on invented and hybrid species. These and other series including “Liberty” and “Offerings” are informed by the artist’s ongoing inquiries into reality and ethics, which she began in the context of her interest in alternative spiritual disciplines and methods of personal growth. Elliot participated in shamanic ceremonies and practices while studying Helen Schucman’s A Course in Miracles and has received instruction from Carlos Castaneda and other renowned spiritual leaders.

In her recent series “Questionable Foods,” Elliot still makes some use of glass but combines and juxtaposes her own flameworked structures and more manufactured-looking commissioned vessels with contemporary food packaging to explore some of the ways in which we are manipulated into consuming physically unhealthy and environmentally harmful products.

Elliot has exhibited in museums and galleries across the United States including solo presentations at venues including the Pensacola Museum of Art, Florida; Tenri Cultural Institute, New York; Armory Art Center, West Palm Beach; Waterworks Visual Arts Center, Salisbury, North Carolina; Museum of the Southwest, Midland, Texas; and Neusole Glassworks, Cincinnati, Ohio. Her work is represented in several prominent collections including that of the Oakland Museum of California; Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington; and Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts. It has also been covered in publications including American Style, World Art Glass Quarterly, Glass Line, dArt International, and Sculpture.

Kathleen Elliot

Artist Statement

Examining and working with diverse experiences in corporate business and alternative spirituality, cultural commentary and craft technique, Kathleen Elliot produces unique sequences of forms and images designed to prompt fundamental questioning and discovery. Based in Cupertino, in California’s Silicon Valley, Elliot draws on her surroundings as well as on her extensive studies in philosophy and linguistics to explore questions of reality, ethics, and the composition of everyday life. Best known for “Natural Botanicals,” a series of rich and complex sculptures of plant forms made from flameworked glass, she has recently expanded her practice to incorporate mixed-media and collage works addressing the developed world’s problematic relationship with food and the political and financial forces that surround and manipulate it.

“Natural Botanicals” reproduces organic structures in a brittle manufactured material, but incorporates pigment to introduce natural-looking variations in color and texture. In celebrating the beauty and value of nature, these objects also remind us of its fragility. A subsequent series, “Imaginary Botanicals,” extends this theme and formal language by introducing fictional variations, some of them hybrids, and exploring the possibilities of alternate worlds. In “Liberty,” Elliot explores ideas around the movement from restriction to personal growth, while “Offerings” translates Buddhist mudras (spiritual hand gestures) into sculptural form as an invitation to greater generosity and peace. And in the series “Questionable Foods,” collages and constructions made partly or entirely from packaging become a tool for piercing the field of hyperbole and manipulation that surrounds the relentless marketing of food as a commercial product.

Kathleen Elliot

Resumé (Selected) (For full resumé go to: www.kathleenelliot.com/resume)

Solo Exhibitions2019 The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago, IL2018 Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA2017 McAllen International Museum of Art and Science, McAllen, TX San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX Chandler Center for the Arts, Chandler, AZ2016 Mills Gallery, Central College, Pella, IA Mary G. Hardin Center for Cultural Arts, Gadsden, AL2015 Biedenharn Museum and Gardens, Monroe, LA Franklin G. Burroughs – Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum, Myrtle Beach, SC Waterworks Visual Arts Center, Salisbury, NC2014 Founders Hall Art Gallery, Soka University, Aliso Viejo, CA “Beyond Art Selves,” The Armory Art Center, Montgomery Gallery, West Palm Beach, FL Meadows Museum of Art, Centenery College of Louisiana, Shreveport, LA2013 “Playing with Fire,” Ellen Noel Art Museum in Texas, Odessa, TX “Living Flame,” Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA “The Natural & The Imaginary,” Krasl Art Center, St. Joseph, MI “Imaginary Botanicals,” Tenri Cultural Institute, New York, NY “Eden Revisited”, The Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science, Visual Arts Center, Sioux Falls, SD2012 “Eden Revisited,” Visual Arts Center of Northwest Florida, Panama City, FL “Art of the Organic,” University of Oregon, Cultural Forum, Eugene, OR “Eden Revisited,” Pensacola Museum of Art, Pensacola, FL2009 “Playing with Fire,” Ariana Gallery, Royal Oak, MI Two-Person Exhibitions2014 Foosaner Art Museum, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL “Glass and Charcoal: The Art of Kathleen Elliot and Huguette Despault May,” Ringling College of Art and Design, Selby Gallery, Sarasota, FL2013 Mattie Kelly Arts Center, Northwest Florida State College, Niceville, FL “Playing with Fire,” Morris Museum, Morristow, NJ, exhibition with Paul Stankard “A Continuous Mark,” The Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum, Lafayette, LA Group Exhibitions2016 “Resonance and Memory: The Essence of Landscape”, Michelson Museum of Art, Marshall, TX2015 “Kathleen Elliot Presents”, Empire Seven Studios, San Jose, CA “Mooncakes, Churros, and Cherry Pie”, Euphrat Museum, Curator Diana Argabrite, Cupertino, CA2014 “Resonance and Memory: The Essence of Landscape”, Elga Wimmer PC, New York, NY, Curator, Robert Curcio2013 “Visions, The Next 50 Years, 41st Annual International Glass Invitational,” Habatat Galleries, Royal Oak, MI2012 “Playing with Fire, Artists of the California Studio Glass Movement”, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA “Playing with Fire,” Philabaum Glass Gallery, Tucson, AZ2011 “Incendiary Dreams,” Hodgell Gallery, Sarasota, FL. Curator, Robert Mickelsen “The Nature of Glass,” Schack Art Center, Everett, WA. Curators, William and Sarah Traver2010 “COLD+HOT,” Micaela Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Curator, Micaela Van Zwoll “Colour,” Hodgell Gallery, Sarasota, FL. Curator, Laura Donefer “Glass Jewelry: An International Passion for Design,” Kentuck Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville, KY2009 “2009 Statewide Drawing and Print Competition & Exhibition,” Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA “Feminine Essence,” Judy Youens Gallery, Santa Fe, NM “UrbanGlass Gala Auction,” Brooklyn, NY “Momentum,” Art Object Gallery, San Jose, CA “Bay Area Annual,” Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, CA. Juror’s Award2008 “SOFA,” Chicago, IL, 2005 - 2008 “Bay Area Glass Sculpture,” Sculpturesite Gallery, San Francisco, CA “Unbreakables,” Cabrillo College Gallery, Aptos, CA “Glass In The Community,” City Windows Gallery, San Jose, CA

EducationGlass Art Seminar with Paul Stankard, John Burton Program, January – May, 2010Center for Cultural Innovation, San Jose, CA, October – November 2008, Business of ArtPilchuck Glass School, Seattle, WA, July 2003, Flameworking Survey with Shane FeroPilchuck Glass School, Seattle, WA, July 2002, Skin Deep: The Flameworked Surface with Robert MickelsenPilchuck Glass School, Seattle WA, July 2001, Beginning Glassblowing with Laura DoneferInternational Society of Glass Beadmakers, Boulder, CO, May 2001, Gathering: Various Demo Artists and LecturersDe Anza College and Foothill College, Cupertino, CA 2000 – 2015, Sculpture, Drawing, Art HistorySan Jose State University, San Jose, CA, December 1996, Beginning GlassblowingThe AJI Network, Los Altos, CA, 1992 – Present, Business Professionals Course, LEIP ProgramLogonet, Inc./Business Design Associates, Berkeley, CA, 1985 – 1992, Ontological Design Course

Kathleen Elliot

Exhibition Fact SheetKathleen Elliot

Questionable Foods

In “Questionable Foods,” Kathleen Elliot still makes some use of glass but combines and juxtaposes her own flameworked structures and more manufactured-looking commissioned vessels with contemporary food packaging to explore some of the ways in which we are manipulated into consuming physically unhealthy and environmentally harmful products. The more recent series, Elliot again makes use of glass but incorporates collage elements to address the developed world’s problematic relationship with nutrition and the political and economic manipulation that surrounds and shapes it. Using gaudily designed packaging from cereal, candy, and other products, she questions the promise of independence, flexibility, and fun they hold out. What, she asks, are the physical and societal costs of accepting commercial hype and prioritizing convenience over lasting health? “Questionable Foods” collages and constructions made partly or entirely from packaging, become a tool for piercing the field of hyperbole and manipulation that surrounds the relentless marketing of food as a commercial product.

NUMBER OF OBJECTS:

SPACE REQUIREMENTS:

PARTICIPATION FEE:

INSTALLATION:

TRANSPORTATION:

COMPLEMENTARY SUPPORT MATERIALS:

33 pieces. Sizes, dates and media featured on pdf presentation (www.ktcassoc.com, Curators, Art-ists’ PDFs).

1,500 sq ft. minimum; 150-180 running feet.

Round-trip shipping, wall-to-wall insurance of 50% of retail value, in-transit and on-premises.

Work will be sent ready to hang; standard 2D wall hanging apparatus required.

The exhibiting institution will provide all shipping and insurance for the exhibition and cover all related costs. This will include full responsibility for delivery to venue following and return to artist at the conclusion of the exhibition. Work must be fully insured during transport and on premises.

Katharine T. Carter & Associates will provide a $200 credit towards the production of a color announcement card, 200 complementary cata-logues, and museum wall text. All pre-written press materials, to include biographical sum-mary, artist statement, petite essay, press releases, media releases, pitch letters and radio/television spots, to be provided by Katharine T. Carter & Associates.

CONDITIONS:

CANCELLATION:

1. Exhibiting institution must provide object insurance to cover replacement costs should items be damaged or stolen while on premises. Minimum insurance required: 50% retail value. Should loss, damage or deterioration be noted at the time of delivery of the exhibition, the artist shall be notified imediately. If any damage appears to have taken place during the exhibi-tion, the artist shall be informed immediately.2. Security: Objects must be maintained in a fireproof building under 24-hour security.3. All packing and unpacking instructions sent by (artist) shall be followed explicitly by competent packers. Each object shall be handled with special care at all times to ensure against damage or deterioration. 4. As stated above (see space requirements), the number of works to be exhibited can be dictated by the space and needs of the exhibiting institution. 5. Exhibitors may permit photographs of the exhibition and its contents for routine publicity and educational purposes only.Exceptions may be made pending discussion with the artist.

Any cancellation of this exhibition by the hosting institution, not caused by the actions of the artist, shall entitle Katharine T. Carter and Associates to an award of liquidated damages of $3750.00. The hosting institution further agrees that any suit brought to recover said damages may only be brought in Columbia County, New York.

Contact and additional information:

Katharine T. CarterKatharine T. Carter & Associates518-758-8130 fax 518-758-8133ktc@ktcassoc.com

P. O. Box 609Kinderhook, NY 12106-0609

Exhibition Fact SheetKathleen Elliot

For exhibition inquiries contact Katharine T. Carter & Associates

Email: ktc@ktcassoc.com

Phone: 518-758-8130

Fax: 518-758-8133 Mailing Address:

Post Office Box 609Kinderhook, NY 12106-0609

Website: http://www.ktcassoc.com