KATHLEEN SCHROEDER
MFA ’25 Fine Arts Low-Residency
My work explores the visual possibilities when using preselected, simple starting materials within a defined, yet flexible, systematic approach to creating. By purposefully placing limitations on my methods and materials I am pushed to explore new relationships between them and applications for them. This cycle of refining my process and pushing boundaries is the core of my artistic practice and is rooted in finding personal connections between my thoughts and my art. In the most recent iteration of my process I explore the creative possibilities and beautiful visual results that are possible by printing unrefined, utilitarian fibers (such as burlap and jute meshes) onto paper using a simple monotype printmaking method. The ink captures the inherent structure of the fibers creating detailed fingerprints of the intertwined fibers on paper. As they are printed and reprinted, my starting materials are freed from their manufactured confines and become beautiful forms that drift on the surface of the paper as if they are animated. No two prints are the same but are united in their inception. Combining the prints in larger compositions physically connects the printed fibers and their shared foundation.
I seek deeper insights rather than inconsequential investigations. My process slows me down to meditate on the magic in front of me and allows me to appreciate and understand what they offer me. The knowledge I gain as I create continues to open up new ways of connecting my ideas to the work. It becomes an ongoing conversation that takes unexpected, but welcome, new paths.
Kathleen Schroeder lives and works in Newtown, Connecticut. She studied art at the Hartford Art School in West Hartford, Connecticut where she subsequently taught printmaking. The goal of her work is to highlight the flexibility and beauty of her materials using traditional printmaking, paper, and fiber art techniques. She has been included in many exhibitions throughout the United States including a solo exhibition of her lithographs at the Five Points Gallery in Torrington, Connecticut in 2023.
