Katherine Spinella is an artist, organizer, and collaborator with research focused on themes related to the attention economy and our cultural understanding of nature. As a collage-based artist, Spinella employs printmaking, digital tools, sculpture, and video as primary mediums to raise questions about how we consume and relate to images, icons, and symbols. Using a playful, free-associative approach she creates new narratives centered on labor, attention, and time that transform the refuse of commerce and everyday life into acts of renewal.
Spinella is a director of Well Well Projects, organizer of Thunderstruck Collective, and founder of Carnation Contemporary. Their work has been supported by grants from the Ford Family Foundation, Oregon Arts Commission, The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, Portland State University, Vermont Studio Center, Kala Art Institute, and Women's Studio Workshop. Recent exhibitions include Dandelion, a solo exhibition, at Well Well Projects in Portland, OR; Summer Sampler at Museum of Museums in Seattle, WA; 2023-24 Pacific Northwest Drawers at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR; Sleepless Nights at SOIL in Seattle, WA. This year, Spinella’s work was collected by Soho House and will be featured in the 2024 opening of the Soho House Portland.
Catfish Blue, silkscreen, 26 x 40 in. 2020
Dandelion (cabbage), archival pigment print on photo rag paper, silkscreen and oil on canvas, partial view of Mary Ruefle poem ‘Observations on the Ground,’ textured paint on wood frame, 30 x 47 x 4 inches, 2023
Gallery view of When your sweat smells like heavy metals exhibition, 2021
Install view of Dandelion exhibition, 2023
Dandelion (sun, star, rain hex), silkscreen on color acrylic plate and Immersion dyed rug, textured paint, light, 22 x 34 inches x variable height, 2023
Ground Water, digital photograph on raw canvas, terra cotta, debris (sand, twig, rock, organic material) from around the cabin, HD video projection, dimensions variable in 36 x 48 x 24-inch area, 2019