Katy Cowan

Cherry and Martin is pleased to present its second solo exhibition with gallery artist Katy Cowan. The exhibition will include free-standing sculpture, wall-bound work, and installations.

The physicality of Cowan’s objects and the implications of that physicality continue to drive her studio practice and investigation into the intersections of fine art, craft and labor. Cowan is able to seamlessly shift between media from print making to ceramics to textile to sculpture, and back again; each of these relies on a larger systematic way of thinking within Cowan’s practice through variation and repetition. Staple guns, wrenches and crowbars, for example, are cast, re-cast, traced and molded in various formats, colors and materials. This repetition encourages a new way of considering each object, how they are physically handled, and their universal functionality. The objectivity and diversity of Cowan’s practice brings to mind post-minimalist artists like Alan Shields and Nancy Graves, who were quite comfortable working with a host of materials. With each form of Cowan's artistic output, dichotomy is at play. Her works are both simple and complex; decorative and functional; benevolent and sexual; child-like and sophisticated.

Katy Cowan (b. 1982 in Lake Geneva, WI) received her BFA at the University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA) and MFA at Otis College of Art and Design (Los Angeles, CA). Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Green Gallery South (Oak Park, IL); Dan Devening (Chicago, IL); Green Gallery (Milwaukee, WI); Cherry and Martin (Los Angeles, CA); and LTD (Los Angeles, CA). Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at Cherry and Martin (Los Angeles, CA); The Poor Farm (Manawa, WI); The Torrance Art Museum (Torrance, CA) and Los Angeles Nomadic Division (Los Angeles, CA). Cowan lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and Milwaukee, WI.