Kathleen Vance

Newtown Creek Waterway

2017

Kathleen Vance explores environmental issues such as water conservation and protection through positive stewardship of the land. She looks to convey an appreciation of nature and transmits the experience of being outdoors through her aural and visual installations.

For the site-specific work, “Newtown Creek” Vance looked to historical maps and nautical charts to find the “prime” of the waterway. Once pastoral land around the creek, it is now surrounded by neighborhoods whose sewers drain into the creek and the original tidal flow has been impeded by urban design, creating a stagnant water body.

For her installation at ODETTA the artist will recall the natural path of this waterway, and will show an alternate clarified course. Researching maps of the waterway from historical documents and charts, She has traced the tidal flow of Newtown Creek from its tributaries: Dutch Kills, Whale Creek, Maspeth Creek and English Kills and redirected the water’s course to a path out of time. Fusing components of its early history of green pastures along its banks and the distressed view of industrial waste, she looks to find the heart of the waterway and a possible solution for the future.

Kathleen Vance has received numerous grants and awards for her artwork including: a travel grant to research the geo-thermal regions of Iceland, a grant from the Puffin foundation for public sculpture and a grant from the Brooklyn Arts council which aided the development and implementation of an outdoor community based art project in East New York. Kathleen was selected to participate in ‘Emerge 7’, an artist development program organized by Aljira, Center for Contemporary Art, with the Creative Capital Foundation. Ms. Vance was artist in resident in Berlin, Germany, presenting a workshop on environmental arts in connection with the Grunewald Parks Department in Germany. Kathleen was a past board member of the Sculptor’s Guild, an active board member of ARTfront, Inc., and a member of the ART artist collective.

Her work was recently featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville and at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT. Kathleen will be featured at VOLTA New York in March. She has exhibited extensively in New York and internationally and continues to live and work in Brooklyn, New York.