Doris Kapner
Davidson, NC
Doris Kapner is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture and printmaking. Her work explores gender roles, domestic craft, and Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
Message
Doris Kapner (b. 1971, she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist working in ceramics and printmaking. The daughter of German immigrants and raised in New York, she earned a B.F.A. in Sculpture from Purchase College in 1994.
Kapner’s varied professional background includes work in galleries, TIG welding, law enforcement, homemaking, visual merchandising, yoga instruction, and art education. These experiences across traditionally gendered roles inform her ongoing exploration of gender, labor, domesticity, and cultural inheritance.
Beginning in 2015, Kapner developed a body of ceramic sculptures depicting undergarments, dresses, and handkerchiefs, often incorporating needlework and crochet. These works draw from domestic craft traditions while examining the social expectations placed on women’s bodies and labor. Since 2021, she has expanded this inquiry through sculpture and printmaking inspired by the darker narratives of the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales. This work culminated in her 2023 solo exhibition A Grimm Tale at McColl Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Kapner’s work has been exhibited internationally, including in Vienna, Austria and Warsaw, Poland. She received First Prize in Printmaking for the Women United Art Prize 2023. Her work has been featured in Studio Visit Book Vol. 1 by the Arts to Hearts Project, Women United Art Magazine, and The Jealous Curator Member Spotlight. Additional recognitions include two selections for Blumenthal Performing Arts’ Artists in the Theater program and a nomination for Best Sculptor in Queen City Nerve’s Best in the Nest.
Kapner lives and works in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Statement
My work examines identity, domesticity, and the pressures placed on women through cultural expectations and social conditioning. I use ceramic sculpture and printmaking to explore recurring symbols of constructed womanhood, particularly bras and panties.
Rooted in domestic space, my practice draws from traditional women’s labor. I use dress patterns to shape clay garments, echoing the sewing and craft I learned from my German mother. The repetition of patterns in textiles, wallpaper, and china is a visual language that runs throughout my work.
Lately, I’ve turned to the stories of my childhood, especially Grimm’s fairy tales, revisiting their dark and subversive content and how they were later reshaped into moral tools, particularly for girls. These tales reveal how early socialization reinforces narrow roles for women.
A key strategy in my practice is to seduce with beauty. I use craft, detail, and form to invite viewers in, then challenge them to confront deeper questions about our inherited beliefs.