INTERDISCIPLINARY MIXED MEDIA ARTIST 

 

Kathryn Wadel is an interdisciplinary mixed media artist and second-generation settler-Canadian who works and resides on the unceded  and traditional territories of the Katzie First Nation and Kwantlen First Nation people. With a BFA degree from Emily Carr University, she utilizes painting, drawing, projection sculpture and community engagement to express contemporary relationships between art, culture, science and social practice. Kathryn’s work has been featured in various exhibitions and festivals in British Columbia and has work in private collections across Canada.

 

In February 2017, Kathryn curated and participated in the group exhibition Spacial Perception And Creative Entropy (SPACE). The artwork in this exhibit investigated parallels between scientific and artistic pursuits to facilitate discourse between the two fields and ultimately challenge the material constructs of reality.

 

Exploring similar themes to SPACE, in early 2018 she was a collaborative artist in Leaning Out of Windows (LOoW) -- a four-year SSHRCC funded interdisciplinary art and science project, involving collaboration between artists and physicists to develop a shared understanding of how knowledge can be translated across disciplines and communities.

​

In 2019 Kathryn collaborated with Garth Covernton, PhD Candidate at the University of Victoria, to create the projection installation, Polymer Legacy, for Curiosity Collider's inaugural Collision Festival: Invasive Systems at VIVO Media Arts Centre. Through research, site visits, and material collection this installation visualizes the social practices sculpting our plastic world and confronts the audience with our synthetic-polymer legacy.

 

As part of her pedagogical practice, Kathryn teaches in-person and online art classes, workshops and is an artist in residence with the Vancouver School Board (2021-2024). Kathryn facilitates and encourages art-making as a creative process through socially-engaged material play.