KAT FLYN
Ripped from the Headlines
March 30 – May 28, 2022
PULL QUOTE
I construct scenes using Americana artifacts in a folk art style to create political and cultural narratives about contemporary American culture.
Biography
K A T F L Y N | | | biography
[lives & works - La Jolla, CA ::: b. 1946 - Washington, D.C. ]
KAT FLYN is a self-taught assemblage artist working presently out of San Diego. She began her career as a costume designer in Southern California. Over the years she amassed a trove of artifacts and collectables which she began using to create assemblage art in the 1990's. In 2000 she sold her business and moved to Cuyamaca, a remote community in the mountains outside of San Diego to devote herself exclusively to her artwork. In 2003 her work was interrupted when the Cedar Fire swept through San Diego county and destroyed the forest, her home & studio along with almost all of her collections and works of art. Following the fire she relocated to San Francisco, where she spent a decade concentrating on her art in her studio in SOMA and exhibiting at galleries in the Bay Area. In 2015 she returned to San Diego and now works out of her studio in La Jolla, exhibiting there and in Los Angeles.
Kat Flyn refers to herself as an Assemblage Sculptor and her works as Political Art or Protest Art. She separates herself from other assemblage artists in that she only employs “saved” as opposed to “found” objects in her work; and her pieces always have a political or cultural narrative to them rather than being surreal or abstract. She also constructs or refashions many of the pieces which she uses in her art, for example she turns a soft drink box into a tenement building in Affordable Housing 2017, a jewelry box into a wheelchair in Last Lily Foot 2016, an old shoe shine box into a hearse Katrina 2018. The result is her work is closer in appearance to Folk Art than Assemblage Art.
Artist Statement
I describe myself as a white Anti-racist Feminist artist. My sympathies almost always reside with the underdog, so my works highlight rigged institutionalized aspects of our culture. Strictly speaking I am an assemblage sculptor because I construct more than assemble my works. My process is to search out artifacts, collectables, and wood carvings and then build scenes to make statements regarding American society. Even when I use artifacts from earlier periods, my subject is almost always about contemporary America. My purpose is to demonstrate that aspects of our national psyche – social injustice, racism, sexism, climate crisis and violence – exist in the present but have their seeds in our past. Additionally, the artifacts I use often are meant to amplify the meaning of the work. For instance, the Black racist stereotype figures (All Aboard, Hot Lips, and Greek Chorus) I use in many of my pieces were often crafted by a white person. By using such artifacts I ask: What kind of society produces such items in the first place?
Curriculum Vitae
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022 Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2022 Gallery 825, LAAA, Hardball, Racism in Sports, Los Angeles, CA
2019 White Noise, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA
Solo Show, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA
2006 Solo Show, The Athenaeum, La Jolla, CA
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Los Angeles Art Association, Ceremonial, Los Angeles, CA
2020 Ferrara Showman Gallery, Inspiration in Isolation, New Orleans, LA
Bedford Gallery, Lesher Center for the Arts, Birds, Walnut Creek, CA
Oceanside museum of Art, Biennial, Oceanside, CA
Inspiration in Isolation, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2019 Art on Paper, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New York, NY
Open Show, Los Angeles Art Association, Los Angeles, CA
2018 22nd Annual No Dead Artists International Juried Exhibition, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA
Bunk, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA
Auction, Los Angeles Art Association, Los Angeles, CA
2017 Annual Juried Exhibition, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA
Auction, Art for Aids, San Francisco, CA
Incarceration, Orange County Center for the Arts, Los Angeles
2016 Casey at Bat, National Pastime Museum
Safe at Home, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA
2015 Exhibition Juror Show, The Athenaeum, La Jolla, CA
Art for Aids Auction, San Francisco
2014 Exhibition Opening, Artspan, San Francisco
Auction, Art for Aids, San Francisco
2013 Jerry Malloy Negro League Exhibit, Yogi Berra Museum, Little Falls, NJ
Four Square, ARC Gallery, San Francisco
2012 Art of Baseball, George Krevsky Gallery, San Francisco
San Francisco Fine Arts Fair, George Krevsky Gallery, San Francisco
Consequences, ARC Gallery, San Francisco
Lost & Found, ARC Gallery, San Francisco
2011 Dollhouse, ARC Gallery, San Francisco
2010 Guerrilla Art, ARC Gallery, San Francisco
2009 Artfully Reclaimed, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Navato, CA
2008 The Dream of Memory, ARTwork SF Gallery, San Francisco
About Face, ARTwork SF Gallery, San Francisco
2007 Breaking Ice: African Diaspora, ARTwork SF Gallery, San Francisco
Artfully Reclaimed, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Navato, CA
ARTIST AWARDS & COMMISSIONED WORK
2016 Casey @ Bat, National Pastime Museum
2016 Three commissioned works honoring the Negro League & the first female MLB Players, National
Pastime Museum
2015 Juror’s Choice, The Athenaeum, La Jolla, CA
2013 Jerry Malloy Negro League Exhibit, Yogi Berra Museum, Little Falls, NJ
2011 Juror’s Choice, Artspan, San Francisco, CA
2007 Juror’s Choice, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Navato, CA
