Kate Glenn
(she/her)
Kate Glenn is a queer, feminist, interdisciplinary artist who explores vulnerability through emotional and physical processing. Focusing on deep emotions, personal history, and taboo she creates monuments to specific events in her life relating to her body and mind. Some of these events are sexual in nature, some medical, and some are emotional. All were exploratory and expansive. She attempts to recreate and elevate images and feelings with obsessive faithfulness to detail while embracing the impossibility of capturing the truth of a specific moment in time. Mirrors, camera phones, and social media are all spaces for reflection on the present and past in her work and life. The implied social nature of her work, including only her view gives the sensation of hearing one end of a phone call, but barely knowing the context of the conversation. The efforts to share are sincere and generous but are perhaps tainted by nature of intimacy mediated by screens.
She moved from upstate New York to Glasgow to pursue fine art again in this program after a hiatus. Her paintings of photos from her personal archives, taken with her phone, extend the ephemeral lifetime of the moments captured and offer an intimate snapshot into her life. She has exhibited in various shows around Glasgow and Edinburgh. Most recently she’s been awarded the first inaugural Arthouse Prize offered to graduating MFA students. Prior to embarking on her MFA at the Glasgow School of Art she exhibited work in upstate New York; Baltimore, Maryland; and Seoul, South Korea. She earned her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
I love you, I trust you.
Screenprint on Somerset Satin White paper 300 gsm
(1/12) Edition
38.8 x 29.6 cm
In CMYK process screen-printing I am referencing the digital image. The metadata of the image is printed directly onto it, giving the audience what is usually in my titles (exact time) as well as additional details (location, phone type etc). In reproducing this image I’m sending it to more viewers than the initial receiver of it. The social photo, written about by Nathan Jurgenson, is used to communicate without words, or with minimal words accompanying. The mirror selfie without the phone visible was interesting to me in contrast to my paintings. As well as the covered up nudity. Not modest but teasing and inviting. Love and trust is present in the image.
Screenprint on Somerset Satin White paper 300 gsm (1/12) 38.8 x 29.6 cm
November 25, 2023 7:18:24 PM
Oil on Canvas
160 x 120 cm
I started this painting as a commemoration to a first date. By the time I finished the painting the relationship had ended and the personal meaning changed a bit. Even when I’m choosing images from my life that are in the fairly distant past, the present is constantly altering my perception of that time. And they will continue to change. For me the oil painting process is an act of stretching time, hold onto a moment and live in it for a long while again. Obsessing over details in the digital photo allows me to pay homage to the split second in time and to my past self.
I speak about this painting and why I paint from photos in an article by Neil Scott. You can read it here. Several other artists are contributors to the article, including 2025 MFA alums William Armstrong and Sarah Palmer).
Oil on Canvas
48 Minutes Before Consensual Jouissance
This painting was started in an effort to add context to a previous painting I made in my first year of MFA, shown at COMMA: The Interim Show.
The abstractions of the image that came with taking a selfie inside an entryway with 6 mirror squares trying to be one big mirror and facing a repeat of the same effort came to me later after reflecting on this image I took very quickly to announce my arrival to the people I was joining.
Oil on Canvas 180 x 140 cm 2025