Katherine Gray

Katherine Gray is an American glass designer who creates fluid, dreamlike objects with her beloved medium. Drawing on the extensive lineage of fine glassblowing whilst infusing it with her personal imprimatur, Gray’s collections including vases, candelabras and goblets. According to her leitmotif of ‘disappearance’ many of her pieces – both functional and non-functional - are designed to fit inside one another, a play on the material’s intrinsic transparent quality.
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Born in 1965, Katherine Gray attended the Rhode Island School of Design and the Ontario College of Art, in Toronto, Canada. A huge proponent of handiwork and physically engaging in the arts, one of Gray’s most prominent artwork pieces is called “Forest Glass,” on display at the Corning Museum of Glass. While she is a skilled glassblower, Katherine Gray glass employs secondhand glasses from thrift stores and online auction sites – a panorama of green, brown, and clear colored bottles, beakers, and cups. Exploring creation, destruction and ecology, these found objects were arranged on clear shelves into the shape and color of trees to illustrate the versatility and timeless appeal of glass works.

Katherine Gray glass is highly elemental. Seminal works and collections by Gray include “Fire,” manifest impressions of heat; “Water” combining the artistic essence of water and ice; and lastly, “Air”, which highlights the intrinsically sightless nature of glass. Like all of Gray’s work, each piece is grounded in a design philosophy that draws on nature, the corporeal and organic phenomenon. Gray’s work is on display in the Museum of American Glass, and the Tacoma Museum of Glass in addition to the Corning Museum of Glass. She has been nominated for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and has garnered many accolades, including the Award of Merit from the Bellevue Art Museum in Washington.

Katherine Gray remains active in academia as an instructor at Rhode Island School of Design and an assistant professor at California State University in San Bernadino, California. Recent projects include acting as curator of “Glass: A Juried Art Show” at Minnetrista Art Center, Muncie, IN, participating in a group exhibition titled “California Handmade: State of the Arts” in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, and presenting solo exhibitions “This Makes Me Think of That” at the Heller Gallery, in New York, NY, and “A Rainbow Like You” at the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art in San Bernardino, California.

Gray’s work celebrates and elevates a prosaic material and forces us to appreciate it anew. “I have invested a good part of my artistic livelihood trying to perfect working with it, to make visible the invisible,” Gray has said. “I want my work to represent the inequity that exists between sublime beauty and manufacturing extravagance.”
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C.V.

Education

MFA – Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

AOCA, Ontaro College of Art, Toronto, Canada

Exhibitions

2015  “California Handmade: State of the Arts” – Maloof Foundation, Rancho Cucamonga, CA

2015  “This Makes Me Think of That” – Heller Gallery, New York, NY

2015  “A Rainbow Like You” – Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art, San Bernardino, CA

2013  “A Tree Grows” – Robert Lehman Gallery/UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, NY

2013  “Dialogue With the Baroque” – Galerie Handwerk/Neue Schloss Schleissheim, Munich, DE

2013  “Ocean” – Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Ebeltoft, Denmark

2013  “Wheaton Glass: The Art of the Fellowship” – Museum of American Glass, Millville, NJ

2012  “Good Enough to Eat” – Craft in America Study Center, Los Angeles, CA

2012  “Petits Tableaux, Winston” – Wachter Gallery, Seattle, WA

2012  “The Janet and Janet Show Pop-up Gallery” – For Your Art, Los Angeles, CA

2012  Museum of Temporary Art, See Line Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2012  “Fifty By Fifty” – Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI

2012  “Fusion” – Oklahoma City Museum of Art, OK

2012  “G8” – Winston-Wachter Gallery, Seattle, WA

2011  “Adrift In A Glass Bottom Boat” (w/ Eric Huebsch) – Raid Projects, Los Angeles, CA

2011  “Nonchalants” – Post Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2011  “Diamond Dust” – See Line Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2011  “Playtime” – See Line Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2010  “Design/Process” – OBJCT Gallery, Claremont, CA

2010  “Smoke and Mirrors” – Smokestack Gallery, Canberra, Australia

2010  Alexys Schwartz Projects, Culver City, CA

2009  “It’s A Very Deadly Weapon To Know What You’re Doing” – Acuna- Hansen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2009  “Tenuous Tenacity” – Glazen Huis, Lommel, Belgium

2009  “Garden of Delights” – Winston Wachter Gallery, Seattle, WA

2009  “Art of Glass 2: Contemporary Glass Among The Classics” – Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA

2008  “Summer Guests” – Acuna-Hansen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2007  “All-In” – Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA

2007  “Here Comes That Sinking Feeling” – RV Fullerton Museum, San Bernardino, CA

2006-07  Bombay Sapphire Prize Exhibition toured England and Europe

2005  “Nouvelle Nuptials” – San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design, CA

2002  “Fruits Of Idleness” – Elliott Brown Gallery, Seattle, WA

Teaching, Curatorial, and Related Experiences

2012  Curator, “Glass: A Juried Art Show”, Minnetrista Art Center, Muncie, IN

2012-present  Member, Board of Trustees, Haystack School of Crafts, Deer Isle, ME

2011-present  Associate Professor, California State University San Bernardino, CA

2007-2011  Assistant Professor, California State University San Bernardino, CA

2001-2012  Member, Board of Trustees, Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA

2009  Designer/Maker of Sponsor Gifts, Glazen Huis, Lommel, Belgium

2009  Curator, “Blown!”, Santa Ana College Art Gallery, Santa Ana, CA

2002-2007  Lecturer, California State University San Bernardino, CA

2000-2001  Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, Il

2000  “Err” – Elliott Brown Gallery, Seattle, WA

1994-1996  Instructor, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

Selected Scholarships, Residences, and Awards

2009, 2013  Nominated for Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award

2012  ARC Completion Grant, Center for Cultural Innovation, Los Angeles, CA

2011, 2014  Summer Research Fellowship, CSU San Bernardino

2011, 2014  Outstanding Faculty in Professional Development, College of Arts and Letters, CSUSB

2001, 2008  Mini-Grant, Office of Academic Research, CSUSB

2002  Brodie Faculty Development Grant, University of Illinois

1998  Award of Merit, Bellevue Art Museum