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Artist Kathryn Geismar



Kathryn Geismar is an artist, psychologist, and mother who lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts. Originally from NYC, Kathryn studied painting at Brown University and then left the field of art for fifteen years to become a practicing psychologist and raise a family. When her second child turned one she started taking nighttime art classes which blossomed into a resurgence of her passion for drawing and painting. She now shares her time between art and psychology and finds important connections between the two endeavors.


Kathryn is a three-time grant recipient of the Somerville Arts Council Fellowship Grant, and has benefitted from residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, The Foundation House, and Castle Hill Truro. She will be at the Manship Residency this coming Fall. Her work has been shown at the Danforth Art Museum, the Bristol Art Museum, the Fitchburg Art Museum, The St. Botolph Club, The New York Arts Club, and numerous galleries including M. David and Co. in Brooklyn and with Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects at the Upstate Arts Weekend. This past fall she co-curated a show entitled "Motherhood As Muse" at the Concord Center for the Visual Arts with Deborah Peeples. She is represented by the Bromfield Gallery in Boston and 13 Forest in Arlington, MA and is a member of the Pell Lucy Artist Collective and the Critlab.





"I am a mother-artist whose work explores identity, individuation, and the complexity of parental love. I explore topics of separateness and relationship that define me and my children as individuals and as family. My on-going project, entitled (m)other, began as a way to engage with my transgender child’s transition; it now also includes my cis-gender child’s unfolding identity as well as my own identity which has been indelibly changed by motherhood, partnership, cancer, and survival.


The (m)other project consists of both drawings and paintings. In the drawings, I create individual life-sized portraits of my children and me in graphite on translucent sheets of drafting film. The drawings are then overlapped, held together by grommets which allow the separate portraits to be attached at the top, and otherwise float free. The grommets have a utilitarian function and also reference piercings, body markings, and jewelry. Figures and faces fluidly merge and separate, hidden and revealed in equal measure.


In the paintings, themes of time and memory intersect with questions of identity. Old self-portraits from childhood are sometimes backdrops for current embodiments of self; partial portraits appear at the edges of the canvases, simultaneously leaving and entering the pictorial space. Faces are stacked, one on top of the other, to create a totemic feel to separate moments of coalescence. The identities appear to be changing before our eyes, escaping the known boundaries of the canvas."





Tell us a little about yourself (where you are from) and your background in the arts.

I grew up in NYC with a graphic designer father and an urban archaeologist mother, both of whom fostered an interest in art, personal history, and identity. We went to museums a lot, and I was surrounded by interesting and beautiful objects. I had a phenomenal drawing teacher in high school, Aaron Kurzen, and the fundamentals of what I know are still grounded in his teaching. My freshman year at Brown University I painted for the first time, and I was hooked on the fleshy beauty of oil paint. I wasn't given any formal instruction, however, and for years if I wanted to render anything specific I would draw it rather than paint. Since returning to art I have studied with many extraordinary artist-teachers and feel that I have finally gotten some foundational skills in painting. Drawing is still a more comfortable medium for me -- one where I feel some confidence that I can create something that speaks to me. But there is something important about the struggle with painting. I have to commit to a process that is uncertain and requires more revision and failure. I like what that demands of me.


What kind of work are you currently making?

I am currently working on some large-scale portraits of my now grown children embedded within the context of their early childhood drawings and self-portraits. I am playing with the interactions between these two incarnations of self. I am also completing a series of small portraits of my two children wearing hoodies, as I am fascinated by the gender neutrality of this particular article of clothing. It was a complete surprise to realize that some of the resulting images took on elements of religious/madonna paintings when wearing blue hoodies that were draped over their heads.


What is a day like in the studio for you?

My days in the studio change all the time. I am not good at creating routines or order, so if I am in the midst of a project I will get right to work, but otherwise I might putter and pull out an art book or create a list of ideas or do something to help me transition in. I am a fast worker, so once I get going I can get a lot done. Like many people, I often work on multiple projects at a time. I find it essential to get some distance from my work so that I can see where I am heading and also what I need to change. I go on art adventures with friends quite a bit and feel very grateful for my art community. I find critiques and feedback from peers to be a valuable part of my process and I am part of several critique groups, both in person and online.


What are you looking at right now and/or reading?

I've been looking at a lot of Euan Uglow recently since there was a show of his work in England that I really wanted to see (but couldn't). I went to the Doran Langberg show at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in April and I am still thinking about it. It feels like this is a time when art is necessary for humanity's survival, and Langberg somehow painted and scraped and scratched and repainted that very urgency. I am reading "The Hawk's Way" and just had my first falconry session last weekend with both a hawk and an owl. I always listen to music or books on tape when in my studio. Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Wilco, and Radiohead are on constant rotation and have certainly impacted my unfolding work.


Where can we find more of your work? (ex. website/insta/gallery/upcoming shows)

Currently in shows at the Paul Dietrch Gallery in Cambridge and the Fitchburg Art Museum







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