Kate Renee
Interviewed November 23, 2015 | Written and photographed by Ilya Natarius
I’m lost. I look down each hallway and every one of them looks exactly the same: white walls lined with doors that open to artist studios and workspaces, low ceilings, and the occasional stairwell that leads to a different floor. I’m inside of the 2010 Building on Hennepin Avenue in northeast Minneapolis, attempting to navigate my way through it. Finally, I reach a door with a sign that reads “2010 Artblok — Building 4” with an arrow pointing down the next hallway.
The Artblok houses the studio of Kate Renee, a Minneapolis-based painter known for her street art style, unique process, and deeply symbolic imagery in her work. Kate and I have agreed to meet at her studio for our conversation, followed by participating in the activity that Kate indicated was her main source of creative energy: driving.
I make my way up the final flight of stairs, round a corner, and find Kate’s studio. Kate greets me at the door and begins showing me around her space, pointing out some new pieces she’s working on and highlighting very specific details of the process she’s using to make them. I decide that having our conversation in the studio is best, followed by an open dialog while driving afterward.
During our talk in her studio, Kate talks about fleeting feelings of creativity that occur throughout her day, and the need to write them down the moment she gets them. For her, this happens most often while commuting to and from her studio. “I drive to and from work for thirty minutes every day, and it happens to be where I most often get my ideas,” Kate says. She notes that it happens most often when going home, when her mind can relax and stop thinking about the to-dos planned out for the day.
Eventually, we take our conversation on the road. Coffee in one hand, camera in the other, I prepare myself for the journey in Kate’s car. We make the trip to and from Burnsville — the route that Kate takes from her home to her studio every day. “It’s really easy for me to focus on other thoughts since most of the trip is a straight shot on the highway,” Kate says as she enters the ramp for I-35W. As we drive the full route, I think about how this fleeting feeling that Kate described comes about so easily while doing simple tasks, and how I’ve been in the same situation, but in my own car, in my own seat, having the same fleeting feelings of creativity. It’s a type of creative combustion that comes from a seemingly unexplainable place in our minds. I begin to realize, while sitting in a literal vehicle for creativity, that it’s not the actions, but the journey toward something that gets us to where we want to be. It’s the lessons we learn from our successes and our mistakes that we incorporate along the way. I realize why driving at this very moment of realization is perfectly timed — I’m experiencing creative combustion for myself.
Kate Renee is an acrylic painter who creates works of art using what she describes as a lowbrow artistic style to capture and express complicated topics. Kate graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor of arts in fine arts and art history and a minor in design. Kate has interned at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, worked at the Larson Art Gallery and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and volunteered at the American Swedish Institute. Kate is quickly building a local as well as national reputation for her exhibitions in galleries throughout the United States. She has received awards and recognition for several of her exhibitions over the years, leaving her mark on the art world. Kate is currently working on new pieces for upcoming gallery exhibitions that will take place later this year.
Kate has always been certain about becoming an artist — that much is clear from listening to her talk about her life leading up to where she is today. Even as a child, Kate showed a motivation for art. “When I was a kid I used to get up in the morning and color in my coloring books, and I wouldn’t eat my breakfast until I had finished my project,” she says. This motivation continued through the years, and Kate eventually began to pave her own path when she got older.
Upon starting college, she was well on her way to having the resources she needed to become a successful artist, though not from classes, but from her own independent studies. “At college, something in me decided to go for art all the way and school wasn’t a great supporter of that, so I went to the bookstore and bought a book about the basic business of being an artist. I started reading that book like crazy,” Kate says. “I also had this portfolio class in school and one day I showed up and I think the teacher didn’t think I cared so she asked me why I wasn’t participating. I said I was already done.” Kate carried this independence all the way through college, with her final project appropriately culminating in artistic elements that would follow her through her artistic career post-graduation. “During the week of finals I kept being asked about my project, but I didn’t have any passion for it. Finally I got to the point where I didn’t care anymore, so I went to the school store and bought two big pieces of foamcore. I painted a gigantic octopus and a gigantic jellyfish and I just made these big two googly critters, and now the octopus is on my blog and business cards, so it’s been lingering throughout my career. The professor at the time said, ‘This has nothing to do with your project,’ so then I walked him through my process and ideas and got an A, even though it had nothing to do with the original idea,” Kate says. Through her own work and investment in art, Kate developed a unique style that she describes as “twisted children’s images to talk about bigger issues.” Elaborating on the style, she says: “As a kid I really liked the coloring books, and paired with graffiti, it all kind of built up into this.”
Once Kate settles on an idea for a piece, there’s very little doubt. “I have a lot of confidence in what I’m doing. I’m not going to start something unless I can see the end result,” Kate says. Despite the process-driven nature of her work, Kate’s source of ideas is much more fleeting. Kate’s ideas typically come about in a spontaneous manner, most often during driving. This is thanks to Kate’s daily commute being simple enough that she is able to focus on other thoughts. “I think that’s what driving does for me — it’s easy enough that I know how to do it, but it lets my brain wander and come up with new ideas,” she says. “It’s automatic. I know when to turn, I know when to
switch lanes — I don’t think about it.” Keeping a notebook or Post-it note handy, Kate writes down her ideas as they come to her, not letting them linger. As Kate says, if she waits too long or tries to develop the idea further, dwelling on it past the fleeting moment it came to her, it no longer retains its cohesion. “Once I start pushing for an idea, that’s when it’s not going to happen at all,” Kate says.
For Kate, driving is the only consistent trigger for a good idea. She doesn’t go to galleries and mainly reads books for research purposes, leaving all of her creative mental energy for her commute. However, this doesn’t mean that Kate avoids these avenues entirely, but rather uses them for a different purpose: creative buildup. “In several artist books they talk about a creative well, where you take your bucket and dip down into your creativity, and if you’re struggling it’s probably because your well is dry — you’re throwing your bucket down and maybe you’re not going down deep enough. I see inspiration that way. You have to build up your creativity, and that’s the fun part. That’s where I go to galleries and hang out in museums or shows or junk shops or collect rocks or hang out in the park. That’ll fill the creative well, but I don’t get inspiration from that,” Kate says. “I think it’s great that other artists can draw from that, but I’m just in the car.”
Kate’s work is process-oriented, well-thought-out, and complex. It’s the very opposite of the way it was initially dreamed up — a fleeting notion while driving — and that’s the most fascinating part of all. There’s no complexity or intentional setting beyond that of being in the car. It’s simply the artist’s mind completely unfiltered. There is no real process — just the mind at work. Creative combustion.
