Katherine Kane

Ostentatious Plumage

Collage on wooden board

“Inspired by making a mockery of ostentatious materialism; the chasing of status. I wanted to satirize the vulgar way people show off their wealth, turning themselves into absurd peacocks with gaudy 'plumage' in order to feel a sense of superiority to others.”

— Katherine Kane

About the artist

Katherine Kane

American

Katherine Kane is a Costa Mesa based artist who uses her love for people and social equality to create her art. Her journey began as a physiology student at Michigan State University. After completing neuroscience internships at Rockefeller University and MIT, she took a job in HIV research at Harvard. She moved to NYC and began a graduate program at NYU studying social psychology and learned big picture mechanisms of how groups of people are controlled in society. This gave her the awareness to begin creating artwork based on her cumulative knowledge in various fields of study. In the meantime, her interest in perfumery was sparked by a chance encounter with a perfumer that landed in a position in a creative fragrance lab. After facing discrimination in the fragrance industry, she began to regularly participate in social activism in the workplace and use art as a form of therapy. She realized she could blend her love for social justice with her burgeoning interest in art. She was able to channel her experiences as a woman of color into subversive art that challenges the status quo. In addition to her esoteric work that focuses on revelatory work and ethical dilemmas faced by participation in a system ruled by elites, she began to blend agitation propaganda and protest art into her repetoire. She is not a formally trained artist, and uses whatever resources she can to visually express her concepts. Her work catalyzes a spark in her audience's moral compass. She inspires more awareness and analysis of life's inequalities through her work. She urges viewers to break out of indifferent attitudes and feel empathy. She is open to any medium of expression, but currently utilizes acrylics, mixed media collages, sculptural works, and digital platforms to bring her visions to life.

When she is not producing art, she is formulating flavors for applications within the cannabis industry. She continues to develop fragrance formulations out of her love for the raw materials and the process; not for profit or agenda, but the pure joy of it. She knows creating beautiful smells can influence the atmosphere of a space and can induce powerful emotional reactions. Soon, she hopes to blend her perfume expertise as a means of expression in concert with her art. She believes the combination will initiate symbioses and promote understanding. She believes curating the olfactory atmosphere will enable the audience to embrace her artistic message when viewing her exhibitions. She is pleased with her relocation from NYC to Southern California where she enjoys time with her partner and cat, tennis matches and raising awareness for racial injustice and feminist activism. A series of Katherine’s art is currently on display in Downtown LA at the Dove Biscuit Studios.