Katherine Westbrook
Excellence Award Winner
Printmaking
Printmaking infuses its long, traditional history with a diverse modern perspective in an experimental environment.
My work is sensitive, quiet, and contemplative- indicative of my own mannerisms and the way in which I work. Metaphors found within the natural world are a conscious choice that I make within my subject matter in a visually poetic manner, referents to my own personal experiences. By focusing my practice primarily in the medium of lithography, I've found that I thrive in the long hours of arduous and intensive focus that the process demands. I've found that lithography provides an outlet that is akin to the healing process. Healing is laborious, time consuming, physically and mentally demanding, and never seems to quite go exactly as planned. With lithography, it's very much the same. It's like its own special form of therapy. You have to fully embrace the entire process in order for it to succeed, and you have to be mindful every step of the way.
What is your most memorable
experience at KCAD?
The most memorable part about my experience can't be simply summed up in one or two instances. It's been a culmination of various bits and pieces that have all worked consecutively to inform who I am today, and how I work as an artist and printmaker. It's been incredible to watch the evolution of my work in the past few years, and just how much I've grown as a person. I can't thank my professor Olivia Timmons enough for all of her guidance and mentorship, as I would not be anywhere near where I am today without her.
What are your most
notable accomplishments?
I've been accepted as one of seven people to attend the world-renowned Tamarind Institute of Fine Art Lithography in Albuquerque, NM, where I will begin intensive training to become a collaborative lithographer and printmaker. I've also worked as an intern in 2019 at Oehme Graphics, one of the leading fine print publishers in the country.