KATHRYN BILHARZ GABRIEL

I submerge painting into drawing, transforming a matrix of media layers into a skin that reveals specific imagery or indefinable figures.  The result becomes a strange world: part nostalgic post-Pop graphics and color, and part romantic impulsive drawing; mixing mechanical, natural, figurative, and scientific interests from my life.  

Subjects are derived from the many mechanical parts in my surroundings and personal interests in technology and the natural landscape, melding organic atmospheres with man-made structures, as well as a fascination with my paternal family's deep history in the sciences. 

I am motivated by my experiences navigating the arts and sciences as a female and how that identity has affected the narrative of my work, considering my subject matter is labeled typically as male-oriented industries. Observers seek out structure in my work and often disregard the feminine qualities, or beauty, as a negative. This conversation bothers- but motivates- my decisions in the work. 

As a girl I was told a future in engineering was not friendly to a woman, and I was encouraged instead to think about teaching, as it was "more appropriate."

I see my work as an expression of conflicts in my environment. 

I am a product of the contexts that have built my life: technological and scientific personalities, struggles with feminist representation in my work, as well as my close observation of the natural interactions between parts, people, and things- and the conversation which comes out of preconceived ideas on beauty, gender, and art.