Catie Rutledge

My life changed forever on February 15, 2011. My father, a man with whom I had always had a very tempestuous relationship, committed suicide in the woods behind our house. My work has changed dramatically in the past year as I have begun to gravitate towards performance and video in my artistic practice, eschewing painting for a medium more immediate and temporal.

When all logic seemed to have vanished from my life I began to investigate the crests and pitfalls that steered my perception of and engagement with the everyday. This included videotaping myself as I recounted the day of my father’s suicide and staging a public performance where I shaved my armpits and my legs. These works were birthed from an impulse to push something uncomfortable and private out into the public, and in both instances I was able to bring something heavy or unspoken out into the open.

Sadie Benning, Louise Bourgeois, and Tracey Emin continue to inspire me with their ability to reveal incredibly intimate details about their lives while simultaneously exploring the representation of the sexualized female figure. I am interested in how I can consider my own naked body inherently obscene by virtue of seeing myself through the male gaze. I present my...

2018- MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2015- BFA, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2015
Ritual Shaving 3, site-specific performance, Piazza Signoria, Florence, Italy
Bring Your Own Beamer #1, Florence, Italy

2014
Can’t Do ☹ (Advanced Painting Workshop), 7th Floor Gallery, UW-Madison Humanities Building, Madison, WI
Solo Exhibition, Everything is not okay, 7th Floor Gallery, UW-Madison Humanities Building, Madison, WI
One Night Stand, 100 State Street Gallery, Madison, WI
Wide Open, Bright Red Studios, Madison, WI
Focal Points, Union Corners, Madison, WI
Long Story Short, 7th Floor Gallery, Humanities Building, Madison, WI
Gender and the Body, Electric Earth Café, Madison, WI

2013
Hundred$, 100 State Street Gallery, Madison, WI
Connections, Bright Red Studios, Madison, WI
22 Body-Minds in One Haus, Chazen Museum of Art and MMoCA, Madison, WI
Illumination Journal, University of Wisconsin-Madison
WUD Video Art Week, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2012
Race, Religion, and Representation, MSC Gallery, Madison, WI
The Huffington Post, Student Artwork: Soul-Soothing Art by the Next Generation
Undergraduate Symposium Juried Exhibition, Madison, WI
RAwards, Semifinalist, Madison, WI
RAW: Provocations, Madison, WI
Strong Foundations, University of Wisconsin, Madison