BIO

Kate Russo is an artist and published author living in Portland, Maine. She holds a B.A. in Fine Art and Art History from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, USA and an M.F.A. in Painting from The Slade School of Fine Art, London. With a strong connection to London, Russo also spends a few months a year in the city.

Russo’s work as a writer and painter intersect through her deep interest in narrative and storytelling. As a graduate student at the Slade, Russo often wrote short stories to accompany her heavily patterned drawings and textile pieces. For this work, she won the school’s Henry Tonks Prize for Drawing.

In 2008-2009, Russo was a member of theatre group “Love Bites” in which she wrote one act-plays performed in Calder Theatre Bookshop. Theatre and stage design has long remained an influence on her drawing.

In recent years, Russo has exhibited paintings as part of “Temporality, The Process of Time” at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, “Perfection” at Able Baker and The Fitchburg Art Museum’s portraiture exhibition, “People Watching: Then and Now,”

In 2018, her stitched drawing traveled to Tokyo where they were showcased at Postalco, a Japanese lifestyle brand that designs the “pin hole” graph paper she uses. Together, they collaborated on a calendar for the store. 

In 2016, her series Painting by Men was selected for Center for Maine Contemporary Art Biennial by writer/critic John Yau and gallerist Christine Berry.

Previously, she exhibited in England and United States, including solo shows at Foley Gallery in New York City (2014) and Aucocisco Galleries in Portland, ME (2014).  In 2015 she was selected by curator Anthony Elms for  “Currents: Do You Hear What I Hear?” at the A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, as well being selected for London’s Creekside Open by artists Richard Deacon and Lisa Milroy.

Other recent group exhibitions include, Corey Daniels Gallery in Wells, Maine, (2017),  “Delicate Creatures” at Foley Gallery NY (2015),  “Emerging Artists” at The Ogunquit Museum of American Art (2013) and the CMCA Biennial (2012).

Russo has lead discussions about her work at The Center for Maine Contemporary Art and the Fitchburg Museum of Art. As an undergraduate at Colby College, she interned at the Colby College Museum of Art under then head-curator, Sharon Corwin. Together, they curated The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture: 60 years.

In recent years, Russo has been a frequent guest critic for art students at Bowdoin College.

In February of 2021, Russo’s first novel, Super Host, about a struggling mid-career artist was published by Putnam, an imprint of Penguin Random House.