kristin landowski
class of 2017
about
Kristin Landowski, a Midwest native, is an Oakland-based artist. She is a dual degree student pursuing her MFA in Ceramics, with a strong emphasis in Interdisciplinary, as well as a MA in Visual and Critical Studies, at California College of the Arts. She received her BFA in Ceramics and BFA in Sculpture, as well as an Art History Minor from University of Wisconsin: Stevens Point.
Upon completing her undergraduate degrees, she worked within the community in Central Wisconsin, assisting with starting up a new gallery and was instrumental in managing and teaching within a local art community center.
Kristin’s work and research delves into the intersections of women’s identity and body issues
involving disease, trauma and abjection. She has shown locally in the Bay Area and across the United States.
Kristin thoroughly enjoys teaching and sharing knowledge of art and clay. She loves being in nature as time allows, traveling with her cat on random excursions and enjoying a fabulous dessert. She considers herself a hunter and gatherer of odd found objects to live with and then incorporate into her artworks.
She has over 10 years teaching experience. She is a graduate teaching assistant at California College of the Arts, a mentor for the First Year Honor Program at CCA, and she teaches ceramics classes at the Richmond Art Center.
kristin’s thesis
PICTURING DIS-EASE: THE IMAGERY OF BREAST CANCER IN PINK-RIBBON CULTURE AND THE FINAL WORKS OF JO SPENCE
Considering advertising, logos, and product design, I study the visual manifestations of pink-ribbon culture—a phenomenon introduced by non-profit organizations such as Susan G. Komen For the Cure but, I argue, exploited by these organizations’ corporate sponsors. Following the work of medical sociologist Gayle Sulik, I explore ways in which the pinkwashing of breast cancer implicitly asserts that capitalism cannot sell a diseased body. In counterpoint, I examine photographic self-portraits by artist Jo Spence. Produced in the aftermath of her lumpectomy and predating the popularization of pink-ribbon culture, Spence’s images dare to be ugly, to refuse conventional beauty as a cure for female suffering.