KRAKOW.- Politechnika Krakowska presents Daunting Transitions, an interdisciplinary solo show by artist Kathryn Hart, on view September 17-October 17, 2018 in ‘Kotlownia’ Exhibition Hall, Warszawa 24, 31-155 Krakow, Poland.

In this solo exhibition, Hart explores the burden, responsibility and fear of choice in the face of a daunting transition. Featured are an installation, ink drawings and small sculptures related to her continued dialogue with evolving feminine identity and the hope for new starts during a period of turmoil, emotional conflict, and uncertainty. Her visual language in this show is rooted in line, space, and gesture to indicate humanoid or ‘entity’ energy and pathways. Her work also comments on the myriad of female roles as engineer, builder, janitor, sustainer, caretaker and explorer. This exhibition on display in Krakow debuted in NYC in May 2018 at the School of Visual Arts Project Spaces CE and has continued to evolve.

Hart offers, “An onslaught of happenings obliterated my flightpath – my husband's cancer, the deaths of both my parents, and my struggle with an ongoing disease and trauma. I was completely derailed, turned inside out. In the aftermath of personal upheaval, how do I move forward? How do I reconcile who I was with who I need to be? How do I find new pathways to personal truth, growth, love, a place to rest, a place to call home? The accompanying burden, responsibility and fear of choice looms large.”

Kathryn Hart presents this theme across an array of media. All exhibited works have a predominance of organic energy, or “the energy of an entity,” as Hart names it. A site-specific installation using commonplace materials of lines, wire and embedded glass objects hints at the verve of figuration, stretched taut and tattered by competing forces. Through the uncomfortable distending, pulling, and movement of hundreds of lines and wires, Hart indicates that outer forces hold the form static and inner energy propels it outward in all directions. Shadowy lines, either beacons or footprints, hover behind the actual and creep along the wall beyond support boundaries. Embedded glass objects fracture light and cause illumination within the piece. Voids between the turmoil of line, veins and channels offer places for pause and rest.

Also exhibited are ink drawings and wire sculptures, or “drawings in space,’ as Hart describes them, with line, gesture and energy as their foundation. With these, Hart intends to evoke the impression of peering inside the entity and viewing elemental forces. The twenty-six drawings hung together offer varied glimpses of different energies, a taxonomy of internal drive. Small mixed media and paper wall sculptures allude to the single-celled, organic growth of new beginnings.

In Daunting Transitions, Hart examines the dichotomies of external and internal forces, movement and stillness, contemplation and decision, and the resulting tension of the dualities. “Lines symbolize energy, veins, structure, and connections. They reveal potential paths ahead, and scars of the ones just followed. Knots are both junctures and hurdles. I learned suture knots from my plastic surgeon father. His knots would both join and conceal.”

Kathryn Hart is a multi-disciplinary artist who frequently exhibits in NYC, Los Angeles, and Europe. Recent venues include Ateneo de Madrid (Spain), Howland Cultural Center (Beacon, NY), IDEA Space/Colorado College, Andre Zarre Gallery (NYC), the Chelsea Art Museum (NYC), A.I.R. Gallery (Brooklyn), ArtHaus (Denver), Galerie SD Szucha 8 (Warsaw), Zamek w Goluchowie, (Poland), Myslenice Cultural Center (Poland), Oceanside Museum of Art (CA), Museo de Castello de Estense (Italy), Southern Nevada Museum of Fine Arts (Las Vegas), and the Colorado History Museum.

Hart’s work is in the public collections of the Ministry of Art and Culture of France, Ministry of Art and Culture of Poland, Southern Nevada Museum of Fine Arts, Brooklyn Art Library, Myslenice Cultural Center (Pl), and many private collections. International awards include scholarships from the Council of Europe (2016), and the Ministries of Art and Culture of France and Poland (2015, 2014), and the United Nations Harmony for Peace Award (2010).

Hart holds a B.A. from Boston University, an MBA from the University of Texas at Arlington, and has extended studies from the School of Visual Arts in NYC and the City of London Polytechnic. Hart lives in Colorado.

For more information contact Kathryn Hart at 214-363-4025 or hart.kathrynd@gmail.com

Exhibition hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 11:00-17:00. ‘Kotlownia,’ Pawilon Konferencyjno-Wystawowy, Politechnika Krakowska (Crakow University of Technology), 24, 31-155 Krakow, Poland +48 12 628 2000