Faculty
Kate Beck (b.1956) American painter and writer. MFAIA.
Investigation into drawing and painting has been my continued aesthetic objective. My paintings materialize in imagined landscapes and portraits through spontaneous mark, brushwork, color and organized scale, often suggesting concurrent feelings of place and displacement. Recent works conceptualize contemporary figurative practices with historic reference to early northern European renaissance and Flemish drawing and painting, and 19th century French romantic painting. A separate sensibility, my visual works are often accompanied by poetic verse written simultaneously as their surfaces develop and emerge.
Recent fascinations include a transformational study of the landscape paintings of Giorgio Morandi 1932 – 1963, and his journey into deeper abstraction, as well as landscape photographs I generate casually during reflective walks near my home and places I travel, enlarge and imbue
oil paint prints. Each of these conceptualizations prove to be opportunities for scouting phantom feeling and illusionistic space, furthering the obscurity between realism and abstraction.
I am a recipient of a professional grant from the Adolf and Esther Gottlieb Foundation in New
York, and also a Foundation for Contemporary Art, Covid-19 Artist Relief Fund Grant in 2021. I
have been a resident fellow at the BAU Institute (New York, Italy, France), Newlyn Gallery &
Exchange, Cornwall, UK; Oakes Creek Ranch, Clarendon, TX; The Reside Residency, London,
UK; and The Vermont Studio Center, VT. Professional collaborations include Thomas A. Clark,
poet, Scotland, UK; Berg, Jones & Sarvis Dance, Portland, ME; Stiftung Konzeptuelle Kunst,
Soest, GER; Gorcums Museum, Gorinchem, NL; PIT Project Initiative, Tilburg, NL; parisCONCRET, Paris, FR; Brito-Rodriguez Arquitectura, Lisboa & Óbidos, PT; New Mexico Museum of Art, and the Friends of The New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME; and in New York; September Gallery; MinusSpace; Masters & Pelavin; OK Harris; The Drawing Center; and Kentler International Drawing Space among others.
My journalism is sourced through New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) in New York.
I am an MFA academic advisor and thesis editor at Maine College of Art & Design in Portland,
and delighted to teach classes in Visual Culture at Maine Media Workshops + College in
Rockland, Maine.