Katherine Taylor

Email: ktaylo73@kennesaw.edu

Office Telephone: (770) 420-4378
Office in Visual Arts Faculty Hall, Rm 239

Biographical Sketch

Katherine Taylor is an artist and educator born in Biloxi, Mississippi. She received her MFA in drawing and painting from Georgia State University and previously taught at the Atlanta College of Art. She now joins Kennesaw State University as half time Assistant Professor of Drawing and Painting in the Visual Arts Department. Taylor’s work is exhibited and collected nationally and has been shown in museum exhibitions in Georgia and Florida. Her characteristically autobiographical paintings have been the topic for review in numerous publications. New American Paintings included her in the Southern Competition Catalog number 58 and featured, “Aftermath Camille 1969: Impala,” on the back cover. In 2006, Taylor’s solo shows include an (upcoming) exhibition at Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta; “Ground Losses,” part of “Courting Disaster” for The Atlanta Contemporary; and “Aftermath” at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia. Additionally, Diverse Works Art Space, in Houston, Texas will feature a selection of her paintings in an invitational exhibition this fall. Taylor is represented by Marcia Wood Gallery, www.marciawoodgallery.com.

Katherine Taylor

Email: ktaylo73@kennesaw.edu

Office Telephone: (770) 420-4378
Office in Visual Arts Faculty Hall, Rm 239

Educational Philosophy

As a teacher in the Visual Arts, I believe it is important to authenticate the relationship between what we see and how we know. I begin this process in foundation drawing and painting by teaching the visual skills that illuminate how we perceive. I know that vision mediates experience, so through observation I teach students to translate the world with the basic tools, skills and elements of art. This primary visual model becomes the foundational structure for all further art making.

Because what we see and how we think are interdependent—at advanced levels—I encourage critical and conceptual thinking. It is important students are given ways to articulate beyond self-expression. One of the fascinating aspects of contemporary art is its discourse with identity studies. Historically art exists within social and institutional constructions that include and exclude individuals. Students must consider these relationships because they define the context that shapes art and the artist.

In my experience as an artist, I uphold drawing and painting as the forms I most value. Alternately, as an educator I know students will ultimately determine the forms art will take. My job is to give back my craft so that it will continue to shape the foundations of contemporary art.