We live in an age of unprecedented human agency in terms of our ability to shape our surroundings, to produce tools to support our needs and desires, and to communicate with each other across vast distances. Drawing on the tradition of landscape painting and the sublime, Katie Shima’s work reflects a new kind of landscape for this new Anthropocene epoch.
These landscapes are complex and intricate, blurring the boundary between the organic and the mechanical, the hand and the machine. The overall composition one perceives at first glance gives way to increasing layers of overwhelming detail upon closer examination. Shima uses contemporary digital fabrication tools such as the laser cutter and CNC router to extend traditional weaving, painting, and drafting techniques, pushing their accuracy and detail to the limit of human perception. Looking at these pieces, there is a sense that there are yet more layers, more beyond the frame, a vast and complex network that we cannot see or understand. They are obsessive, betraying a sense of anxiety at the vastness and complexity of the problems we face in this world. At the same time, the process of creating them is a meditative one; like a mandala, each piece is a physical expression of hope.
Katie is a Brooklyn-based artist and registered architect with a B.A. and M.Arch from Columbia University. She is a founding member of the Loud Objects. View Katie’s LinkedIn profile here, or contact her for her current CV.
Selected past exhibitions:
Art Omi: Single-Handedly, 2019
Con Artist Collective: Sculpture Show June 2018
BRIC: What Time Is It There? March 14 – June 3, 2018
Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism: Urban Imaginaries, Spring 2018
Stand4 Gallery: Reconceived Notions, 2017, Brooklyn, NY
All Mad Here: M.O., 2017, New York, NY
All Mad Here: super(un)natural, 2016, New York, NY
Trestle Gallery: Introductions, 2016, Brooklyn, NY
Something In Mind: Living Machines, 2014 New York, NY
George Walter Vincent Art Museum, 2014, Springfield, MA
Rush Arts Gallery: CurateNYC Top 150, 2013 New York, NY
Mighty Tanaka Gallery: The Devil in the Details, 2013 Brooklyn, NY
Lockwood Matthews Mansion Museum, 2013 Norwalk, CT
Bridge Gallery: Katie Shima & Amanda Burnham, 2013 New York, NY
Devotion Gallery: Living Machines, 2012 Brooklyn, NY
Selected publications:
Seven Years to Zero, 2017
Architectural Fairy Tales, 2016
Works and Days Quarterly spring 2013
Praxis spring 2014
Selected residencies:
Con Artist Collective, 2018, New York, NY
Ace Hotel, 2014, New York, NY
Det Jyske Kunstakademie with the Loud Objects, 2012, Aarhus, Denmark
Clocktower Gallery with the Loud Objects, 2010, New York, NY