Kathy Butterly makes small ceramic sculptures that topple, bend and stack. She pulls and folds cylinders and spheres into intricate, mysterious forms developing character “as each vessel’s exterior begins to enfold the surrounding space, confusing insides with outsides, utility with play, factual with fictional.” (Charles Long)
Butterly made her first print, “Loosened Up” in 2004 at Shark’s Ink. Using forms from recent drawings and sculptures, she combined incongruous, intriguing objects into a playful and precarious pagoda of sticks and pearls.
Kathy Butterly shows her work widely and was included in the 2004 Carnegie International. She is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the American Craft Museum, New York, the Renwick Gallery, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, the Oakland Museum, California, The Mint Museum of Design and Craft, Charlotte, NC, the Museum Het Paleis, The Hague, Netherlands and others.
She received an Anonymous was a Woman Grant in 2002.
Kathy won the Smithsonian’s Contemporary Arts Award for 2012. The biennial honor comes with a $25,000 prize and is intended to recognize artists younger than 50 who have produced a significant body of work.
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