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Katherine Spinella, When your sweat smells like heavy metals


  • Carnation Contemporary 8371 North Interstate Place Portland, OR, 97217 United States (map)


When your sweat smells like heavy metals reclassifies imagined post-human artifacts of our digital subconscious and material imprints. This solo exhibition by Katherine Spinella transports the refuse of commerce into multimedia amalgamations that are fractured, layered and codified into a poetic abstraction of signs. In a free association free fall approach, Spinella uses digital manipulation, printmaking, sculpture and video to conflate images and abstract signs as they relate to our perceptions of nature. Familiar warning signs, obtuse punctuation, scribbles, shreds, flames and compost amass in a process of renewal-based gestures that make space for something new and unknown to occur.

Katherine Spinella (b. 1985) is a collage-based artist interested in process and perception. She is co-founder of Carnation Contemporary, Thunderstruck Collective, and Well Well Projects. Recently she has exhibited in Future Landscapes at Borders International Art Fair in Venice, Italy and Thunderstruck at NARS Foundation in New York, NY. Her work has received financial support from the Ford Family Foundation, Oregon Arts Commission, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts. Spinella received her MFA from the University of Oregon in 2013. She currently works as an adjunct professor and is based in Portland, OR.