PENUMBRA WORKSPACE PROGRAM | NYC | 2022
Kate Ovaska
“Kate Ovaska stood out for her use of a traditional photographic mode to craft surprisingly tense images that exhibited a heightened sensitivity to light and human emotion.”
– Adama Delphine Fawundu & Klea McKenna (2022 Jury).
“[…] I am creating something previously incomplete: the family archive. My mother was adopted during the Baby Scoop Era in the United States and in turn gave her firstborn up for adoption. My father and his girlfriend also gave their firstborn up for adoption when they were in high school. The existence of my two half sisters was kept secret from me until I was an adult. Restlessness from this triangle of anonymity drives this work: to understand the complex social and psychological connections of family held within biology, the gravity of an inherited trauma that must be redeemed. […] ”
Image © Kate Ovaska. Courtesy of the artist.
Kate Ovaska holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She has taught photography at Columbia University and The New School. She has been awarded the CAA Professional Development Grant, the Fulbright Fellowship to Germany, and Maryland State Arts Council Award in Photography.
Her residencies include Light Work and Pioneer Works.
She is the founder and director of Brooklyn Darkroom, a traveling art residency for analog photographers. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
