Kathryn’s paintings and assemblages pose questions about the complex relationships between nature and our consumer-driven world. She explores the themes of stewardship, damage, fluidity, and control. Her work relies heavily on the use of post-consumer waste with a focus on plastic and synthetic matter. These objects function as both muse and raw material for the production of artmaking. Objects and refuse are culled from construction and consumer waste streams, as well as collected off beaches. Plastic ephemera, lead flashing, nautical charts, architectural drawings, plexiglass signage, and synthetic polymer paint are often incorporated and reconfigured onto the painting surface. The motivation for the work centers on the concern for the growing quantities of plastic in the ocean and how art can play a role in developing images of awareness, resilience, and hope. Her work is a material and spiritual practice which seeks transcendence and restitution.
She was a fellow at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH, as well as at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, VA, and Woodstock School of Art in Woodstock, NY. She has had numerous solo shows in Boston and Philadelphia. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at: the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in NYC, Art Forum Ute Barth, Zurich, the Butler Institute of American Art, the Katonah Museum of Art, the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, the Fuller Museum, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the College of William and Mary. Frund’s paintings are in private and corporate collections including Delta Airlines, Pfizer Inc, Smilow Cancer Hospital, Ritz Residence, and Meditech. Her work has been reviewed in ARTnews, Art New England, The Boston Globe, and featured in New American Paintings Magazine.
Kathryn Frund received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and did additional coursework at the School of Visual Arts in NYC.
