KATE RIVERS
As a teenager I obsessively rode the city bus from my stop to the end and back to observe and draw the people on the bus during my junior high school years. A person on the bus referred me to the children’s Saturday School at Columbus College of Art and Design. My sketches gained me free tuition. During high school I received the Ohio governor’s award for the arts.
I received a full scholarship to Columbus College of Art and Design and later a scholarship and fellowship at The University of South Carolina.
My formal studies began with sculpture, incorporating the integrity of gesture and line. Shortly after creating a larger than-life-size group of figures made from scrap rebar and roofing tar, I met Louise Nevelson who encouraged me collect to objects from my environment. Soon after I moved onto printmaking, because it was more gender-friendly and discovered lithography and printmaking.
I then taught at the university level until I chose to retire early, 2011, from my tenured position as an Associate Professor in Oklahoma. Since I have been a full-time artist. In 2025 I moved to New York from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Artist Statement
My work explores memory, loss, and nostalgia through collected ephemera – maps, ticket stubs, and discarded papers - that hold traces of lived experience. Moving between abstraction and representation, my practice has long centered on book and nest forms, unified by narrative and the relationship between text and image. Over time, these series evolved in opposing directions – nests flattening into abstraction, books pieces becoming increasing representational. In addition, I am exploring a renewed focus on figurative and observational work. Recently, I have begun depicting people in public spaces, painting over collaged materials and repurposed books. Through acts of destruction and reconstruction, I create new forms that reflect my grief over personal loss, environmental loss, and our current political moment.