ABOUT

photo: (c) Sylvia Stagg-Giuliano

Kate Gilbert cultivates the critical role the arts and artists play in transforming our cities, our relationships, and ourselves. These investigations manifest in artwork, a curatorial practice, and dedication to expanding the field of public art. 

As an artist and cultural worker, Gilbert strives to facilitate joy and spontaneity and to drive public appreciation of contemporary art practices. Gilbert, the product of generations of creatives who didn't dare call themselves artists, cites her over-active childhood imagination and early exposure to large-scale sculpture as critical factors in her creative investigations. Her studio practice informs her vision of a public art city and her leadership as the founder and Executive Director of the Boston Public Art Triennial, the city's first large-scale public art exhibition. The Triennial evolved from the nonprofit Now + There, established in 2015 which she founded to open minds, conversations, and spaces with contemporary public art.

Gilbert earned her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and a BA from Connecticut College. She is a WBUR Community Honors Awardee (2025) and a recipient of the New England Foundation for the Arts' Newell Flather Award for Leadership in Public Art (2020). Gilbert contributed to Idea City: How to Make Boston More Livable, Equitable, and Resilient (2023), calling on civic leaders to advance art in public spaces. Gilbert lives and works in Boston, MA with her husband and escapes to a small studio in East Boston to keep her artistic practice alive. Even if only on Sundays.

 
 

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

In sculpture, video, and installation, I focus on the nature of consumption and the exploration of distinct alternatives.

My work explores the relational hierarchies of objects and people. It employs humor, simulation, and meditative observation to question objects of comfort, the retail systems they operate in, our consumptive behaviors, and our collective fears. It then suggests alternatives. 

The sculptures and installations, often simulations of interiors, shelters, clothing, and objects of desire, are created with inexpensive or impermanent materials such as building insulation, fabric, and found asphalt. They provoke one to explore failed utopias, the relationship of designers to their clients, and ultimately leaders to our communities. They prompt questions about who sets our trends in shelter and fashion and whom these tastemakers are really serving.

In all of my artworks, curatorial projects, and teaching, I strive to facilitate independent thinking, provide platforms for meditative reflection, and offer authentic alternatives to unhealthy behaviors.

CV (SELECT)

Click here to download a full CV.

teaching experience

  • 2016-2019 Adjunct Assistant Professor of Studio Art, Connecticut College, New London, CT (Art 222: Special Topics: Objects of Comfort and Shelter)

professional experience

  • current Executive Director, Boston Public Art Triennial, Boston, MA

  • 2014-2015 Curator, D Street artLAB at Lawn on D, Boston, MA

  • 2012 Public Art Planning Process Manager, Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, Boston, MA

  • 2011 Director of Public Programs, Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy

lectures/presentations/panels/workshops

  • “Idea City,” panel, A Better City, Nov., 2023.

  • “What’s the Point?,” Boston Society of Architects, Oct, 2022.

  • Host “Now + There Asks,” 23 Zoom conversation series, Apr. 2020- Jun. 2021.

  • “Positive Change Through Cultural Entrepreneurship,” Connecticut College, Feb., 2019.

  • “Building A Public Art City,” Sorensen Center for the Arts, Babson, Wellesley, MA, Oct. 2018.

  • “A New Wave,” panel, HUBWeek, Boston, MA, Oct. 2017.

  • "Me(dia) Response Self-Awareness and Activism Through Art-Making," 3-part collective art/activism workshop, MIT List Gallery, Cambridge, MA, Aug-Oct., 2017.

  • “Art and Entrepreneurship,” panel, Harvard Innovation Lab, Cambridge, MA, 2017.

  • “Inner Chamber” meditation and media workshop, Babson College, Wellesley, MA, 2016.

  • Guest Speaker, Urban Public Art: Theory and Practice, Emerson College, 2016.

solo exhibitions

  • 2015 Alone Together, Artist Studio Building, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA

  • 2013 HIDE:SEEK, Carroll and Sons, Boston, MA

awards

  • 2025 Community Honors Awardee, WBUR

  • 2020 Newell Flather Award for Leadership in Public Art, curation | NEFA

  • 2016 Big Igniter, Big Sister Association of Massachusetts

bibliography

publications

collections

  • Fidelity Corporate Art Collection