Kate Holcomb Hale

Portrait





Kate Holcomb Hale is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works just outside Boston, MA. Kate creates installations, hand-sewn soft sculptures and paper clay impressions as vehicles to consider the burden and privilege of care, grief, the residue of families and the invisible labor that occurs within the domestic sphere. All her artworks contain the residue of caring for her family over the past decade. They were created with the intention of making the invisible labor of families palpable and visible. While the work is personal, it simultaneously points to the unseen labor force of women, mothers and caregivers whose care work is essential yet remains to be acknowledged, compensated for and valued. 


Kate received her MFA in critical theory and studio art from Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine. She has exhibited throughout the United States and internationally including exhibitions at LaiSun Keane Gallery (Boston MA), Zabludowicz Collection (London UK), Praise Shadows Art Gallery (Boston MA), Spilt Milk Gallery (Edinburgh Scotland) and the ICA (Portland ME). She recently attended the Jenny Family Residency in New Edinburgh, Nova Scotia. Kate has a forthcoming solo presentation at The Danforth Art Museum opening October 7, 2023.








*image above courtesy Carlie Febo Photography

**image left courtesy Joyelle West Photography






"Holcomb Hale’s paper clay impressions of pieces of her home – door hinges, wainscotting – feel like snatches of a dream. Fueled by the drive to capture space, time and memory, her massive, lumbering slipcovers of her family dining table, collapsing upon itself, brings questions of the weight of domesticity and the labor involved in keeping things appearing upright. Precipitated by the responsibility to sell her family home following the death of her father, Holcomb Hale’s new work questions the lifespan of an object and reflects on the ways we place emotional and relational signifiers onto the invisible and overlooked.”