Photo by Kelsey Dillow
Bio
Kyle Cottier (b. Louisville, KY 1993) is a sculptor. They hold a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, 2015 and attended the New York Studio Residency Program in Brooklyn, 2014. They spent a year living in the Smoky Mountains from 2021-2022 as an Artist-In-Residence at Arrowmont School of Arts & Craft . Kyle's interdisciplinary practice blends traditional textile and woodworking techniques spanning sculpture, drawing, and performance. They create work informed by the convergence of the natural and made world, exploring the synthesis of personal and social transformations. Currently, Kyle is living and working as an artist in Knoxville, TN and is a 2025 MFA candidate at the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s Graduate Sculpture program.
Statement
Connection is essential to social and ecological interaction. One thing, depends on another thing, depends on another thing — so it goes. The world is abundant with sturdy patterns, constantly circulating between function, desire, growth, and decay. My labor-intensive studio practice is rooted in the metaphysical study of these shared structures and systems that exist where the natural and made worlds converge. Establishing dialogues that bridge destruction, creation, order, and entropy, my sculptural work exploits the tension between negative space and positive form to achieve a potent sense of ephemerality.
The exploration of the spiritual and convalescent functions inherent in organic material is a vital part of my process. Focusing on the underlying cyclical rhythms in nature — life, death, and regeneration — I am using discarded and found materials as fragmented units to assemble a unified whole. This process, through material repetition and traditional weaving techniques, simultaneously investigates our connection to each other as humans and to our environment.
Human impact in nature is ever-present within my work. Through constructing a language that combines actions of intervention, separation, and reformation, I’m illuminating how we inhabit the earth. Equal to nature and wildlife, my work is inspired by utilitarian objects that divide and harvest natural resources from the earth, leaving an emptiness in its wake. Hollow forms, like vessels, appear often in my work bringing attention to these erasures. The vessel is a fundamental form in craft that represents a balance of artist presence, boundary, and void. In my practice, I’m using this push and pull between negative and positive space as a way for understanding containment — a tool for expressing autonomy, power, and agency over one’s body. Simultaneously, these pieces act as memorials, referencing experiences with loss and how we process grief, individually and collectively.
The exploration of the spiritual and convalescent functions inherent in organic material is a vital part of my process. Focusing on the underlying cyclical rhythms in nature — life, death, and regeneration — I am using discarded and found materials as fragmented units to assemble a unified whole. This process, through material repetition and traditional weaving techniques, simultaneously investigates our connection to each other as humans and to our environment.
Human impact in nature is ever-present within my work. Through constructing a language that combines actions of intervention, separation, and reformation, I’m illuminating how we inhabit the earth. Equal to nature and wildlife, my work is inspired by utilitarian objects that divide and harvest natural resources from the earth, leaving an emptiness in its wake. Hollow forms, like vessels, appear often in my work bringing attention to these erasures. The vessel is a fundamental form in craft that represents a balance of artist presence, boundary, and void. In my practice, I’m using this push and pull between negative and positive space as a way for understanding containment — a tool for expressing autonomy, power, and agency over one’s body. Simultaneously, these pieces act as memorials, referencing experiences with loss and how we process grief, individually and collectively.
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Selected Exhibitions
2023 NCECA Juried Student Exhibition, 57th NCECA Conference, DAAP Galleries, Cincinnati, OH Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art Student Exhibition, Gallery 1010, Knoxville, TN It’s a Trap!, Gallery 1010, Knoxville, TN Functional Beauty, Gallery 1010, Knoxville, TN 2022 Vessel: Embodiment, Autonomy, and Ornament in Wood, The Center for Art in Wood, Philadelphia, PA The Shape I'm In, 44th Annual Tri State Sculptors Conference, Richardson Arts Center, Spartanburg, SC Octocalypse, Downtown Gallery, Knoxville, TN Your Hand in the Shape of a Cup of Tea -- Just This, Able Trade Gallery, Knoxville, TN Party of Five, Sandra J. Blain Galleries, Arrowmont School of Arts and Craft, Gatlinburg, TN One Year Later, Appalachian Center for Craft, Cookeville, TN 2021 Longue Durée, Holland Tunnel Gallery, Newburgh, NY Artists-In-Residence, Wolpert Gallery, Gatlinburg, TN 2020 Earthbound, Stride Art Gallery, New York, NY Collective Expeditions II, International Society of Antiquaries Collective, BSB Gallery, Trenton, NJ 2019 Unchanging Window, Geoffrey A. Wolpert Gallery, Arrowmont School of Arts and Craft, Gatlinburg, TN Collective Expeditions I, International Society of Antiquaries Collective, SUNY Ulster, Stone Ridge, NY If Wishes Were Horses, Queen City 15 Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY 2018 Up Close, Lazy Susan Gallery, New York, NY Time Travelers, Dorsky Museum, New Paltz, NY Labor & Materials II, 21c Museum, Bentonville, AK 2017 Dusklittle, Orange County Arts Council, Newburgh, NY Green Space, Newburgh Open Studios, Newburgh, NY Dusklit, Seligmann Homestead, Sugarloaf, NY Dia, Matteawan Gallery, Beacon, NY 2016 Re-Union, B Minus Gallery, Santa Ana, CA Labor & Materials I, 21c Museum, Oklahoma, OK 2015 Pop Stars, 21c Museum, Cincinnati OH Convocation, The Carnegie, Covington, KY On Labor, Pearlman Gallery, Cincinnati, OH 2014 Foreign Bodies, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati OH Intermission, Chidlaw Gallery, Cincinnati, OH Honorable Mention, New York Studio Residency Program, Brooklyn, NY Publications 2022 Basketry+, Summer Issue 2021 Divide Magazine, May/June Issue No. 3 2020 Under The Bridge, Installation - Autumn Issue Art Market Magazine, June Issue 48 2019 Friend of the Artist, Volume 9 2018 Chronogram, December Issue, Hudon Valley, NY Artrepreneur, Art Business Journal, November Issue, New York, NY Roll Magazine, TIME TRAVELERS, June Issue, Hudson Valley, NY |