RADIATOR, a commissioned installation at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at UC Santa Barbara.

PUBLIC TEXTS: A CALIFORNIAN VISUAL LANGUAGE

Curated by Alex Lukas

"Oakland-based Kate Laster's practice pulls from a wide range of cut-paper traditions, paying homage to an expansive set of influences, including punk graffiti stencils, papel picado from Mexico, and papercuts from the Chinese diaspora common to the Bay Area. Laster's site-specific installation RADIATOR, their first major institutional presentation, pairs ten new pieces with several older works, which the artist refers to collectively as "unorthodox book forms." Sitting somewhere between painting, printmaking, and shadow sculpture, Laster's library is filled with non-linear poetry, activist calls to action, and graceful texts for survival in tumultuous times."

maintenance of mending is inspired by the Jewish ritual object of a huppah— a gateway connecting relationships.
Remixing and celebrating bonds that aren’t just romantic.

Made of telephone poles with logs of Cherry & Oak, it contains nonlinear stories of determination, pollination + possibility.

A woodcut carving itself is a subtractive sculpture that can generate an image as a print or wax rubbing. I made several wax rubbings as a further community activation of this sculpture. I think we need to live with monuments, they take shape in our memory.

I want to believe art can act as a signal flare. A transmission. That art helps us find each other.I did all my carving & painting in 5 days at the Pillow Fort artist residency. Together with Tyler Tamburo, Glenna Yu & Amalya Megerman, we hoisted the lintel beam of this threshold.

maintenance of mending
Conglomerate relief carving on telephone poles, logs of Cherry & Oak.
12‘ x 5’ 2022.

The Six Rights, 2024, unique book

turnover vulnerability

performance still.
Laminated papercut.
3’ x 4’. 2022.

Papercut text:
“RAFT MADE OF SURVIVING BRAMBLES. BUFFED COLOR FIELDS. WHEAT-PASTED EPIGRAMS. MAYBE. LITHOGRAPH. SUGAR-LIFT AQUATINT. RUBYLITH. CHILDHOOD HOME OF CONSTANT TRANSFORMATION. PAPERBACKS & TANGERINES. STILL IN EXISTENCE. DOGS LIKE ME WALK THE TRAPEZE. HUMMINGBIRDS: HARPOONS OF LIGHT + SOUND.

HISTORICALLY VERY SELF DESTRUCTIVE I’M WORRIED REST LEADS TO OBLIVION HOWEVER THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE.
OUR AGENCY. OUR SPIRIT.
OUR SELF-DETERMINATION.
BODILY AUTONOMY IS NON-NEGOTIABLE.

UNSURPRISING YET STILL A CLUSTERFUCK.
SOME MEN JUST JUST SAY THINGS TO FILL AIR WITH NOISE. BUT REMAIN ANGRY + HOPEFUL. MERCURY IN GATORADE.”

LINKED THROUGH
Graphite, watercolor crayon, water based spray paint on carved MDF panel.
4’ x 3’ 2022.

Spray paint on laminated papercut. 11"x14" 2023

Papercut text:

LEMON-LODESTONE
INKLING OF SUPPORT
LOZENGE-LANDING
INTERLINKED Ǝ┴∀ƆI˥Ǝᗡ
RADIATOR
REPAIR MAINTENANCE
MEND RALLY
STAY OPEN

Water based spray paint on papercut diptych. 19” x 38”. 2021.

PAPERCUT TEXT:

TRANSITORY STATES & STARS MADE PRECARIOUS SCAFFOLDS & SYSTEMS FALL.
MAY WE MORE THAN SURVIVE.
Спутник
MOMENTUM TOWARDS A MANIFESTO DISPOSSESSED OF EMOTIONAL REPRESSION.
I DO NOT GRIEVE WHO I USED TO BE BUT I MISS YOU EVERYDAY.
LONG GAME COLLABORATION.
STALWART ARTERIES ALRIGHT ALONE.

FIGHT, FREEZE, FLIGHT, FAWN.

Graphite, Watercolor crayon, water based spray paint on MDF diptych. 8’ x 4’, 2021

Kate Laster

2024

4 x 4"

Edition of 100

Signed & Numbered

This papercut book is a collection of non-linear poetry meant to suggest a breath of overlapping conversation. With a sense of yearning resilience, Shared Book Lung is a riff on personal ads, letterform, and graffiti stencils. This project uses subtractive bookmaking as a metaphor for restorative communication along with the elements such as starbursts, seedlets, flora and other celebratory shapes that serve as windows for readers to look through as a kind of viewfinder. 

I made this book as a selected Small Plates artist in 2024 for San Francisco Center for the Book. It’s available for purchase here.

roadmap accordion

Papercut text:
"OK. THE LET DOWN SEEMS LIKE IT WON'T LET UP. INFINITESIMAL PRIMORDIAL SOUP. MAYBE I DO STILL BELIEVE ART CAN ACT AS A SIGNAL FLARE. A TRANSMISSION. SLOW DETERMINATION. INTERDEPENDENCE REQUIRED BETWEEN PEOPLE. FOLLOWING METAPHOR. BOOKLUNG. ME: FURROWED BROW "THINKY PAIN" SPEAKING FOR THE DEAD. YOU: UNKNOWN FLEXIBLE SPIRIT PROLIFIC VULNERABILITY. "CRUEL OPTIMISM" PRE-DATING KNOTS OF WORRY. INVISIBLE SUPPORT. DEFENSE MECHANISMS MUST CHANGE”

THE WEIGHT OF THOSE WE MUST CARRY WITH US
Woodcut block & print conglomerate house, mixed media.
8.75' x 8.16' x 25’. 2016 - 2018.

STORIES SUSTAIN US

Laminated papercut. 2’ x 3’. 2021.

“LET THE RECORD SHOW. RIPTIDE OF PAIN LANGUAGE. BACK TO THE DRAWING BLOCK. STARBOARD HAND BUOY. TORCH SINGING ALL ALONG. BEFORE I GO. THE SOUND OF A DULCIMER & WOODSMOKE CLUNG TO EYELASHES. STORIES THAT SUSTAIN US. ADAPTIVE PERFORMANCE. NEW MOVEMENTS IN THE WRECKAGE. THINKING SIGNALING SURRENDERING. CIRROCUMULUS UNDULATUS.YOU MAKE WINDOW FLOWERS NOW. NIGHT FLIGHT TO SAN FRANCISCO. EXIT WOUNDS. EMERGENCY BLANKET.”

WAITING GAME

“IN THIS EFFERVESCENT EXHAUSTION: MAY WE FIND EACH OTHER.
BE SAD WITH ME. GRIEVE IN MY MOUTH.

WE TELL STORIES WE MAKE BOOKS WE STRING WORDS TOGETHER, SHAPE LETTERS, BIND PAGES, LET MARGINS FILL WITH TEXT…
MY TIRED DARLINGS, WAITING IS ACTION AND SO IS LEAPING.
SHE WAS RESTLESS. SHE WAS A HOT HEAD.”

unlikely event

Laminated papercut with spray paint and found photograph

2022.

“EXIT INTERVIEW. MESSY DEBUT.
KIND OF GRACE. “PLEASE HOLD ON.” IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT.
AMELIORATE THE UNCERTAINTY WHILE SINKING. LIVING WITH THE DEAD “

QUEER LABORS MURAL
Watercolor and woodcut diptych print.
7’ x 8’. 2021.

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SAY GOODBYE
11x17" book form. 5 pages.
Laminated papercut & recycled thank you bag,
edition of 1, 2022.
Clear as Schmutz press.

This is a project examining the lost people in my family's history. Like a lot of Jewish families, many people in our kin group disappeared. This project is about trying to illuminate the ephemera of people, the documents that are left behind. By printing on these found photos there is an act of preservation while embedding new layers.