FY23 Individual Artist Fellowship Visual Art 3D Recipient
By Krishna Adams, Program Director –
Katie Hargrave of Chattanooga is the visual art 3D recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship for fiscal year 2023. Hargrave’s sculptures and installations encourage viewers to consider relationships between looking at landscape images printed on 2 and 3 dimensional structures and those who experience the actual landscape outside a gallery space. Hargrave also uses everyday objects to create interesting sculptures that raise questions about the objects’ relationship. Her tents are exciting and relate to the popularity and visitation of national parks, further contemplating the relationship between people and the environment. An example of this can be seen in the image above of an installation titled Arches (Devil’s Garden) that explores the impact of tourists in Arches National Park in Grand County, Utah.
“I make multi-media sculptural artworks and installations. My work often uses found objects and references existing forms, and through this, I am able to situate my objects into the world they would normally reside in. By doing so, the audiences are not only art audiences, but they can be passersby seeing a flag on the front of a building, seeing a sign on the street, or seeing a tent within a national park. It is my hope, that by situating by work both within and outside of the gallery that the intention of the “real” reference can begin to be unraveled.”–Hargrave
For 15 years Hargrave has been creating and exhibiting work. Hargrave earned a B.F.A. at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a dual degree in Painting and Art History. Additionally, she received a M.A. from Brandeis University in Cultural Production and an M.F.A. at the University of Iowa in Intermedia and Video with a minor in Drawing.
In 2014 Hargrave moved to East Tennessee from New York to accept the position of Assistant Professor and Foundations Coordinator for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Then in 2020 she was promoted to the Foundation Associate Professor and Foundations Coordinator. In that time she has received numerous awards and honors.
Recent national exhibitions including Hargrave’s work includes the Gadsden Museum of Art in Gadsden, AL; the Doris Ulmann Galleries at Berea College in Berea, KY; Granary Arts in Ephraim, UT; the Nancy Fyfe Cardozier Gallery at The University of Texas Permian Basin in Odessa, TX; Houseguest Gallery in Louisville, KY; The New Gallery at Austin Peay University in Clarksville, TN; the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, AL. the STNDRD in St. Louis, MO; the Christian Brothers University Gallery in Memphis, TN; Michigan Technical University in Houghton, MI; Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, FL; Downstreet Arts in North Adams, MA; and the Sarah Doyle Gallery at Brown University in Providence, RI to name a few. Her work is in the collections of the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND; the University of Iowa Museum of Art in Iowa City, IA; and the Illinois State University Archives in Normal, IL.
The Individual Artist Fellowship (IAF) in Visual Art 3D recognizes and acknowledges an outstanding professional artist, who by education, experience, or natural talent, engage in a particular art form or discipline and reside and work in Tennessee. Each year different out-of-state adjudicators who are professionals with expertise review the applications. The IAF is a competitive grant, and the Commission encourages artists to apply again if they do not receive the grant. Hargrave applied more than once, and it paid off. Her advice to artists is to, “Continue applying! Not only is it incredible to be supported by the fellowship, but it also gets your work in front of other professionals in the field”. She plans to use the IAF funds to improve and update the lighting and storage in her studio and purchase supplies to help create her next body of work.
Hargrave has a full schedule. This fall she will be an Artist in Residence at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. Her work will also be shown in an outdoor exhibition titled, YARDWORK, organized by Tiger Stikes Asteroid-Greenville. Find out more about Hargrave here.
