Below is the official press release announcing funding for Beauties Behaving Badly. Feel free to share, print or publish the material below as you wish.
Bloomington, Minnesota, January 9th 2013-The Minnesota State Arts Board posted their Artist Initiative Grant recipients and included emerging artist, Kate Renee. Kate plans to continue her acrylic series titled, “Beauties Behaving Badly,” which explores new views on the roles of traditional female characters.
These large graphic works interpret classic characters from childhood movies and literature in a misbehaving and non-conventional light. The paintings will challenge the comfortable views of classic youth and children’s media. While including a serious and feminist note, these works are large, bright and are also humorous in the visual manner they are created. One of Kate Renee’s finished works, created during her 2011 artist residency at the Prairie Center of the Arts in Peoria, Illinois, demonstrates her humor through a large chested Ariel from the Little Mermaid. With her small shell swimsuit and silicone implanted breasts, the title simply states, “They Help Me Float.”
Kate Renee will begin creating eleven new “Beauties Behaving Badly” paintings to complete her series and will be exhibiting them in a solo exhibition in the Twin Cities. In addition, she will be printing an exhibition specific catalogue to accompany the show. The grant funded project will begin on March 1st 2013 and conclude February 28th 2014.
Kate Renee has been a professional artist since 2008 and has focused on acrylics. She creates lowbrow paintings that feature characters, people, pop icons, and animals with big eyes and bright colors. She adds touches of humor through her sarcastic and ironic titles. Through her work, Kate seeks to explore character development and storytelling through art. She was recently seen exhibiting in the metro alongside artist, Brett Early at Gamut Gallery in November 2012. Both illustrative painters, the pair showed a variety of characters and creatures in the show, Imaginarium. Gamut comments, “Renee [and Early] represents a bourgeoning esthetic that is transitioning from books, media, pop iconography into the realm of galleries. [She] remains true to the wonderment and jovial perspective drawn from childhood…as well as bold use of color and line, trading texture and detail for contemporary design and eye grabbing imagery.”
Currently, Kate Renee is a protégé in the Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota (WARM) Mentor Program. She is working alongside artist and mentor Jill Waterhouse for two consecutive years to develop her arts career. Kate has worked with Altered Esthetics since 2010 and developed the Solo Exhibitions Program during her internship. For the following two years, she mentored and taught sixteen artists professional and business skills needed for the arts world. Kate has also worked for Michael McGraw’s blog, Local Artist Interviews. This blog site seeks to allow artists to promote their work through artist written interviews. Kate has worked alongside Local Artist Interviews to build gallery relationships. She has also written numerous blog articles on the site to further assist artists with promotional skills.
Kate Renee has been a volunteer for the American Swedish Institute, and has worked at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Larson Gallery and taught workshops at the Bloomington Theatre and Art Center.
Pictures include, “They Help Me Float,” and Kate’s recent exhibition, photographed by Marc James Imagery, at the Fine Line Music Café December 2012 for the Holiday RAWk! event. There she exhibited the six completed “Beauties Behaving Badly” works.
High resolution images available upon request. For more information, please contact Kate Renee at katerenee(at)katerenee.com
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Kate Renee is a fiscal year 2013 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
