March 9, 6 PM, 2008 at Olin 104

Kate Gilmore, video and performance artist, is a 1997 graduate of Bates College. She received her MFA in 2002 from the School of the Visual Arts, NY, and currently resides in New York. Gilmore is the 2005 recipient of the New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship for Performance.

Her work was included in PS1/MoMA’s Greater New York 2005 and Open House: Working in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Museum of Art; and in shows at Plus Ultra Gallery, White Columns, Bronx Museum of Art, Exit Art, Islip Art Museum, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT.; Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music, Tokyo, Japan; and Kunstraume Auf Zeit Gallery, Linz, Austria.

In a recent statement, Gilmore explains, “For the past few years I have been making installations that incorporate video, performance, and sculpture. Through the use of humor, these installations attempt to address the fears and insecurities of daily existence. Using my self as the main character and various types of women’s personalities as inspiration, I create specific narratives that speak to the struggles of everyday life and the different methods we use to make sense of it all.

In each video, I play a character that is confronted by precariously built environments or chaotic situations that force her into awkward and compromising positions. Determined to make sense of the space despite the endless obstacles, each character repeatedly attempts to control this utterly uncontrollable environment.”

Gilmore is this year’s featured speaker in the Bates College Museum of Art’s “Alums in the Arts” lecture series, supported in part by the Friends of the Museum. Previous speakers include Darsie Alexander ’88, curator, and Joshua Holdeman ’91, of Christie’s New York.