Katherine Gray

Katherine Gray is an American glass designer who creates fluid, dreamlike objects with her beloved medium. Drawing on the extensive lineage of fine glassblowing whilst infusing it with her personal imprimatur, Gray’s collections including vases, candelabras and goblets. According to her leitmotif of ‘disappearance’ many of her pieces – both functional and non-functional - are designed to fit inside one another, a play on the material’s intrinsic transparent quality.
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Born in 1965, Katherine Gray attended the Rhode Island School of Design and the Ontario College of Art, in Toronto, Canada. A huge proponent of handiwork and physically engaging in the arts, one of Gray’s most prominent artwork pieces is called “Forest Glass,” on display at the Corning Museum of Glass. While she is a skilled glassblower, Katherine Gray glass employs secondhand glasses from thrift stores and online auction sites – a panorama of green, brown, and clear colored bottles, beakers, and cups. Exploring creation, destruction and ecology, these found objects were arranged on clear shelves into the shape and color of trees to illustrate the versatility and timeless appeal of glass works.

Katherine Gray glass is highly elemental. Seminal works and collections by Gray include “Fire,” manifest impressions of heat; “Water” combining the artistic essence of water and ice; and lastly, “Air”, which highlights the intrinsically sightless nature of glass. Like all of Gray’s work, each piece is grounded in a design philosophy that draws on nature, the corporeal and organic phenomenon. Gray’s work is on display in the Museum of American Glass, and the Tacoma Museum of Glass in addition to the Corning Museum of Glass. She has been nominated for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and has garnered many accolades, including the Award of Merit from the Bellevue Art Museum in Washington.

Katherine Gray remains active in academia as an instructor at Rhode Island School of Design and an assistant professor at California State University in San Bernadino, California. Recent projects include acting as curator of “Glass: A Juried Art Show” at Minnetrista Art Center, Muncie, IN, participating in a group exhibition titled “California Handmade: State of the Arts” in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, and presenting solo exhibitions “This Makes Me Think of That” at the Heller Gallery, in New York, NY, and “A Rainbow Like You” at the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art in San Bernardino, California.

Gray’s work celebrates and elevates a prosaic material and forces us to appreciate it anew. “I have invested a good part of my artistic livelihood trying to perfect working with it, to make visible the invisible,” Gray has said. “I want my work to represent the inequity that exists between sublime beauty and manufacturing extravagance.”
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C.V.

Education

MFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI AOCA, Ontaroo College of Art, Toronto, Canada

Solo Exhibitions

2015   This Makes Me Think of That, Heller Gallery, New York, NY
2015   A Rainbow Like You, Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art, San Bernardino, CA
2013   A Tree Grows, Robert Lehman Gallery/ UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, NY
2010   Smoke and Mirrors, Smokestack Gallery, Canberra, Australia
2009   It’s A Very Deadly Weapon To Know What You’re Doing, Acuna- Hansen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2007   Here Comes That Sinking Feeling, RV Fullerton Museum, San Bernardino, CA
2002   Fruits Of Idleness, Elliott Brown Gallery, Seattle, WA
2000   Err Elliott Brown Gallery Seattle, WA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2015   California Handmade: State of the Arts, Maloof Foundation, Rancho Cucamonga, CA
2013   Dialogue With the Baroque, Galerie Handwerk/ Neue Schloss Schleissheim, Munich, Germany
2013   Ocean, Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Ebeltoft, Denmark
2013   Wheaton Glass: The Art of the Fellowship, Museum of American Glass, Millville, NJ
2012   Good Enough to Eat, Craft in America Study Center, Los Angeles, CA
2012   Petits Tableaux, Winston- Wachter Gallery, Seattle, WA
2012   The Janet and Janet Show, Pop-up gallery at For Your Art, Los Angeles, CA
2012   Museum of Temporary Art, See Line Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012   Fifty By Fifty, Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI
2012   Fusion, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, OK
2012   G8, Winston-Wachter Gallery, Seattle, WA
2011   Adrift In A Glass Bottom Boat (2 person show w/ Eric Huebsch), Raid Projects, Los Angeles, CA
2011   Nonchalants, Post Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2011   Diamond Dust, See Line Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2011   Playtime, See Line Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2010   Design/ Process, OBJCT Gallery, Claremont, CA
2010   Alexys Schwartz Projects, Culver City, CA
2009   Tenuous Tenacity, Glazen Huis, Lommel, Belgium
2009   Garden of Delights, Winston- Wachter Gallery, Seattle, WA
2009   Art of Glass 2: Contemporary Glass Among The Classics, Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA
2008   Summer Guests, Acuna- Hansen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2007   All-In, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
2006 -07  Bombay Sapphire Prize Exhibition toured England and Europe
2005   Nouvelle Nuptials, San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design, CA

Teaching, Curatorial and Related Experiences

2012            Curator , “Glass: A Juried Art Show” | Minnetrista Art Center, Muncie, IN
2012 – present   Member, Board of Trustees | Haystack School of Crafts, Deer Isle, ME
2011 – present    Associate Professor | California State University San Bernardino, CA
2007 – 2011     Assistant Professor | California State University San Bernardino, CA
2001 – 2012    Member, Board of Trustees | Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA
2009             Designer/ Maker of Sponsor Gifts | Glazen Huis, Lommel, Belgium
2009             Curator, “Blown!” | Santa Ana College Art Gallery, Santa Ana, CA
2002 – 2007     Lecturer | California State University San Bernardino, CA
2000 – 2001     Visiting Assistant Professor | University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, Il
1994 – 1996     Instructor | Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

Selected Scholarships, Residences and Awards

2009, 2013   Nominated for Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award
2012          ARC Completion Grant | Center for Cultural Innovation, Los Angeles, CA
2011, 2014   Summer Research Fellowship | CSU San Bernardino
2011, 2014   Outstanding Faculty in Professional Development | College of Arts and Letters, CSUSB
2001, 2008   Mini- Grant | Office of Academic Research, CSUSB
2002          Brodie Faculty Development Grant | University of Illinois
1998          Award of Merit | Bellevue Art Museum