Kate Just

Kate Just is an American born, Melbourne based artist best known for her sculptural knitting practice informed strongly by emotional and autobiographical references. Just holds a BSc in Film Making from Boston University, a BFA in Painting from the VCA and a Master of Arts (Fine Arts) from RMIT University. She lectures in Painting at the VCA and is represented by Nellie Castan Gallery (www.nelliecastangallery.com). Just has exhibited her work across Australia in galleries in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Canberra. She has been awarded numerous grants and prizes, including a 2006 Siemen's Art Prize, the Australian Postgraduate Award, as well as undertaking a residency at the Heide Museum of Modern Art in 2007. Just's practice encompasses use of collage, digital print, and video. Experiences of childhood memory, her own migration, and the garden/natural environment as an allegory for the human condition influenced Just's early works. Her more recent works have focused on Greek and other mythologies depicting the connection between women and nature, in which Just has explored the myths of Persephone's descent into the underworld and Daphne's transformation into a laurel tree. She has also reconsidered in knitted sculpture and installation, elements of famed paintings such as Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights and Michelangelo’s The Fall of Man. Her works posit the transformation of the female body as an apt metaphor for human struggle, awakening sexuality and the fragile state of the natural world. (To view more works go to http://www.katejust.com/). [Information current as at March, 2010]