Katherine Kennedy
ARTIST, WRITER & CULTURAL PRACTITIONER
Katherine Kennedy
Katherine Kennedy is a Barbadian artist and writer. She graduated with a BA in Creative Arts (First Class Hons.) from Lancaster University, UK, and has exhibited widely locally, regionally and internationally. Since 2011, she has worked for the Fresh Milk Art Platform in Barbados as the Communications and Operations Manager, and has contributed to ARC Magazine of contemporary Caribbean art as a Writer, Editor and the Assistant to Director. Through these platforms, she has coordinated and co-managed programmes such as six editions of the Caribbean Linked residency & exhibition programme at Ateliers ’89, Aruba, and the Transoceanic Visual Exchange (TVE) international video, film and new media exhibition.
Katherine's visual practice is heavily tied to a sense of place, using interplay between organic and inorganic materials and imagery to interrogate the spectrum of belonging and displacement in different environments or cultural contexts. She has undertaken projects and residencies at the Insituto Buena Bista (IBB), Curaçao (2012); The Vermont Studio Center, USA (2013); Casa Tomada, Brazil (2013); Akademie Schloss Solitude, Germany (2014); and Punch Creative Arena, Barbados (2019 & 2020). Her written work has been published with platforms such as Sugarcane Magazine (Volume 1, Issue No. 3) and Robert & Christopher Publishers in the A-Z of Caribbean Art (2019). Curatorial credits also include exhibitions commissioned by the National Cultural Foundation of Barbados, and in 2021, she was selected for the CCCADI Afro-Caribbean Art Curatorial Fellowship. She is currently a part-time history/theory tutor in the Division of Fine Arts at Barbados Community College for the BFA in Graphics and Associate Degree in Visual Arts programmes.
Portrait by LOUD|87
Arts CV
Education:
2008-2011 Lancaster University, England: BA Creative Arts (First Class Hons.)
Specialized in Fine Art and Creative Writing
2001-2008 Harrison College, Barbados
Employment:
2021-Present Part-time Tutor, Division of Fine Arts, Barbados Community College, Barbados
2012-Present Communications & Operations Manager, The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., Barbados
2016-2018 Acting Director, The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., Barbados
2013-2018 Editor and Assistant to Director, ARC Magazine, St. Vincent & the Grenadines
Exhibitions (Artist):
2024 Pebbles Bloomed into Islands, Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination, University of the West Indies
Cave Hill Campus, Barbados
2024 Resilience: Black Women Artists, Queen's Park Gallery, Bridgetown, Barbados
2023 Philia, The Holy Art Gallery, Athens, Greece
2023 A Seat at the Table, Queen's Park Gallery, Bridgetown, Barbados
2023 Here Comes the Sun, SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada
2022 trinidad+Tobago film festival 2022, Port of Spain, Trinidad
2022 Exhibition at Wa Na Wari, Seattle, USA
2022 #FutureForward, Queen’s Park Gallery, Bridgetown, Barbados
2022 WOMEN (only), BROUHAHAART, Online Exhibition
2022 Here Comes the Sun, The Art Gallery of Burlington, Ontario, Canada
2022 Feral Neighbourhoods, FAYD (formerly FLORESTA Mag), Online exhibition
2022 Colours of Hope, The Rotunda Gallery, Red House, Trinidad & Tobago
2021 The Clement Payne Golden Square Freedom Park Bench Project, Bridgetown, Barbados
2021 De-Colonisation, Presented by Artists Alliance Barbados, The Embassy of Argentina, Barbados
2021 The Longest Night, The Montpelier Arts Center, Maryland, USA
2021 #social2021, CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea
2021 Innerscapes, The Frame & Art Co., Barbados
2021 Transformation: Objects and Images in Relation, The Clemente Gallery, New York City, USA
2021 Atlantic World Art Fair, Booth curated by Sour Grass Curatorial Agency, Artsy
2020 InSitu, Facilitated by Punch Creative Arena, Flower Forest Botanical Gardens, Barbados
2020 PAST PRESENT FUTURE, The Brighton Storeroom, Barbados
2019 'The Big Reveal', PunchIN 3 residency showcase, Punch Creative Arena, Barbados
2018 Artistic Interventions, The Barbados Museum and Historical Society, Barbados
2016 Rum Retort, Tobacco Warehouse, Greenock, Scotland
2016 Las Antillas para los Antillanos, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, USA
2016 Caribbean Linked IV Exhibition, Ateliers ’89, Aruba
2016 Quaternary: Four Barbadian Female Artists, Gallery NuEdge, Barbados
2016 Digital, The National Gallery of Jamaica, Jamaica
2015 TVE - Transoceanic Visual Exchange, The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., Barbados;
RM, New Zealand; Video Art Network Lagos, Nigeria
2012 Re-Coded: New World Narratives in 3-D, Queen’s Park Gallery, Barbados
2011 39Degrees, The Old Truman Brewery, London, UK
2011 39Degrees, Lancaster University’s BA Fine Art Degree show, Lancaster, UK
Exhibitions (Head Curator):
2023 ONE BIG PAINTING: Alison Chapman-Andrews – 80 Years of Seeing, Queen's Park Gallery, Bridgetown, Barbados
2021 QUINTessence: (5)5 Stages of Change through Barbados' National Collections, Online exhibition,
Commissioned by the National Cultural Foundation, Barbados
2019 Social Geometry: Expanded Drawing Practices by Barbadian Artists, The Queen's Park Gallery,
Bridgetown, Barbados
Exhibitions (Co-curator):
2022 ONE BIG PAINTING: Alison Chapman-Andrews – 80 Years of Seeing, online exhibition commissioned by
the National Cultural Foundation, Barbados
2021 TVE - Transoceanic Visual Exchange 4, The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., Barbados;
TEOR/éTica, San José, Costa Rica
2019 TVE - Transoceanic Visual Exchange 3, The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., Barbados;
CACHE space, Beijing, China; Alice Yard, Trinidad & Tobago
2018 Caribbean Linked V Exhibition, Ateliers ’89 and Caya Grandi, Aruba
2017 TVE - Transoceanic Visual Exchange 2, The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., Barbados;
Footscray Community Art Centre, Melbourne, Australia; Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
2017 Resonance, The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., Barbados
Artist Residencies (Participant):
2018 PunchIN 3, Punch Creative Arena, Barbados
2014 Three month fellowship at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany
2013 fresh casa, Casa Tomada, Brazil
2013 One month residency at The Vermont Studio Center, USA
2012 Creatives in Conversation, Instituto Buena Bista, Curaçao
2012 Five Days of Play, The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., Barbados
Artist Residencies (Coordinator):
2022 Caribbean Linked VI, Ateliers '89, Aruba
2012-2020 Coordination of artist residencies and community outreach programming for local, regional
and international artists at The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., Barbados
2018 Caribbean Linked V, Ateliers ’89, Aruba
2016 Caribbean Linked IV, Ateliers ’89, Aruba
Conferences/Panel Discussions:
2024 Exhibiting artist at the 2024 Black Feminisms Forum, hosted by the Black Feminist Fund at Wyndham Grand Resort,
Sam Lord's Castle, Barbados
2023 Moderator for panel discussion 'Exploring Art as a Tool for Change' at the Barbados Museum and Historical Society
in collaboration with the UNDP Accelerator Lab
2023 Curating Practices in the Caribbean, Roundtable Panel Discussion hosted by The St Andrews Centre
for Contemporary Art, in collaboration with the new online MLitt module Caribbean Cultures and Heritage
(University of St Andrews and University of the West Indies) and the project Shared Island Stories Between
Scotland and the Caribbean: Past, Present, Future
2022 Moderator for artist talk between Pascale Faublas and Kia Redman, Causeries en Virtuel #5 for the
Archipelago exhibition presented by Le Centre d'Art, Haiti
2022 Participating artist in the 'Artists Talking to Artists' series of panel discussions, moderated by Dr. Therese Hadchity
and presented by The Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts, UWI Cave Hill Campus, 2022
2021 Co-discussant in the virtual CCCADI 'Curators in Conversation' series alongside curatorial fellow Jade Foster
2021 Hosted the artist talk for the exhibition 'Reimagined: Unspoken Bodies & Spaces' featuring work by
Barbadian artists Alanis Forde, Anna Gibson and Akilah Watts, 2021
2017 Tilting Axis: Curating the Caribbean at the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands; participant
2016 Tilting Axis: Caribbean Strategies at the Pérez Art Museum Miami; participant
2015 Tilting Axis: Within and Beyond the Caribbean – Shifting Models of Sustainability & Connectivity,
at Fresh Milk, Barbados; participant and co-organizer
Awards & Fellowships:
2021 Participant in the CCCADI Afro-Caribbean Art Curatorial Fellowship
2014 Honourable mention for the Alice Yard Prize for Art Writing, Trinidad & Tobago
2014 Recipient of a Res Artis ResSupport Fellowship to Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany
2012 Recipient of a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, USA sponsored by the Reed Foundation
2008 Recipient of a Barbados Government Scholarship for tertiary education
2007 Recipient of the Irving Burgie Award for Excellence in the area of Literary and Creative Arts
2006 Recipient of the Prime Minister’s Scholarship for Literary Arts in the National Independence Festival
of Creative Arts (NIFCA)