Art Event: Kate McCammon

                Kate McCammon is a painter who graduated from MICA. She talked mainly about her experience abroad, and how her work developed and changed through residencies. She initially created life-sized portraits about heirlooms, heritage, and family history. She initially painted herself and people in her family. She focused on texture, and dramatic lighting. McCammon then studied in both Norway and Paris. During this time she worked with the artist Odd Nerdrum who integrated figures and landscapes in his work. She learned more about how she could develop her paint application style. Her paintings then became less texture oriented, and more narrative. After this she studied in Sorento, Italy she became more interested in landscape painting instead of portraiture. She then worked in Florence where she moved away from paint and began to experiment with charcoal. When she returned to Baltimore she tried to express memories of Italy in her work, along with the combination of figure and landscape. She then returned the Venice twice, and ultimately ended up creating work that referenced images from her childhood. The figures became somewhat spaceless, and were about reacting the memories.