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David Dodd Lee, Art Editor: What stands out for me in these collages by Kathy Bruce is the orchestration of high-contrast moments, the highlighting of figuration, combined with an assertion of value in the improvisational, the clear use of nonstandard art materials, and the overall drama signaled by the use of shadow and light. It all just works for me, the tension between the making of the art and the drama implied by the female forms. On the one hand, danger is present in these pieces, violence implied, by the torn fragments of figures, who appear as if glimpsed, momentarily spot lit. They seem to be trapped inside history or myth, but feel uncannily alive. Countering these traditionally representational moments however is the clear presence of the raw materials that are part of the story of each piece’s making.
 
 
 
 
 

 
David Dodd Lee, cont.: Kathy Bruce’s art aches to be touched and sometimes I can hear the rain falling on all the foliage (I swear I can smell pine trees) that is so insistently present in these weird interiors, nature acting as a kind of ongoing consciousness, sometimes consoling, sometimes a bit ominous. There’s also a bit of what I love in Larry Rivers’ work here—areas of focus in which the figures are made more pronounced, suddenly clarifying in the half-light, juxtaposed with areas of blur and abstraction, as if the depth of field has run amok. There is something of the sublime in these collages as well, nature as represented by the painters of the Hudson River School, the grand landscapes painted by Albert Church, for instance. Kathy Bruce’s collages are both playful and serious all at once.
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

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KATHY BRUCE’s work explores mythological female forms within the context of poetry, literature and the natural environment. Ms. Bruce is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a Pollock-
Krasner Foundation Fellowship, two Fulbright-Hayes scholar grants to Peru, and a Ford Foundation Grant. She has exhibited her work in the US, UK and internationally, including Senegal, Taiwan, Denmark, Peru, France, and Canada.

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