Kat Hutter’s work evokes elements of modernism and pop art
Release Date: 2/20/2008. Expired: 4/19/2008
Kathryn “Kat” Hutter’s works evoke elements of Modernism and Pop art through paintings that incorporate objects to create patterns and shapes to become sculptural drawings designed to stimulate the senses.
Works by Hutter will be exhibited in the East Wing Gallery of The Renaissance Center in Dickson March 12-April 19. An opening reception will be 6-7:30 p.m. Friday, March 14.
“Modernism wasn’t just an artistic movement; it was a cultural upheaval. It was a series of ideas and movements in the visual and performing arts that would change the landscape of everything to come after it,” said Armon Means, curator for The Renaissance Center. “Even Post-Modernism was merely a reaction to Modernism – within itself it was nothing, it needed what came before to define it and give it strength. Modernism was the first movement to embrace the here and now: the elements we all lived among in our daily lives.
“While this would be pushed to its full extent with Pop and Neo-Dada art, that influence of the world around us still remains. Contemporary artists frequently reuse objects that once served a functional purpose, now relegated to their base visual qualities. This is most easily seen in artists working in the sculptural arena, though there are those who venture to approach this in more traditional means.”
Hutter explores this idea in what could be classified as paintings, but also as sculptural drawings. An emerging artist now residing in Portland, Ore., Hutter received her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Clemson University in 2007.
She often utilizes objects discarded from the world of fashion and design – it might be fabric now placed on clearance as it has lost its stylistic edge, or a logo/image etched into the popular consciousness. Repetition of form, pattern, layering; all are methods used by Hutter to re-contextualize objects and images taken from the world around us. Shapes and new objects are formed on the surface of her works allowing for an all new reading of these once known elements, now a new entity all their own.
There are various reasons for the choosing of objects -- it might be color, it might be a unique texture -- nonetheless all are treated by Hutter as a tool to create works expressing the “visual culture” we live in. One that “has so much stimulation and visual information that it becomes difficult to focus on any one thing,” says Hutter.
By implementing a strategy of overloading she creates works that through a destructive process become strangely seductive and engaging. While questioning mass culture, popular images and formal artistic concerns, Hutter is able to form images that though often unidentifiable are oddly familiar.
“From our daily routine to the way we organize our thoughts, some form of pattern exists, which is both based on and altered by something that came before. This is how the familiar works in my paintings,” Hutter said. “The objects used and repeated rely on both their familiarity to the viewer as well as their altered state/environment. The shapes used to frame the work are intended to provide eschewed structures for the absurdity and whimsy contained within. They become bizarre, humorous fragments of a larger visual puzzle.”
For more information on the Kat Hutter exhibit in the East Wing Gallery of The Renaissance Center, contact Means at (615) 740-5545 or armon.means@rcenter.org, or visit www.rcenter.org. The galleries of The Renaissance Center are open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday and admission is free.
The Renaissance Center is a fine arts education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.
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