Kristan Kennedy

Kristan Kennedy (born 1972) is an American artist, curator, educator and arts administrator. Kennedy is co-artistic director and curator of visual art at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). She is based in Portland, Oregon, and has exhibited internationally, working with various media including sculpture and painting.

Early life and education Kennedy was born on October 28, 1972, in Brooklyn, New York City. She received her BFA degree in 1994 from the New York State College of Art and Design within the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, with a concentration on Printmaking and New Media. She moved to Portland, Oregon in 1995.

Career Kennedy has taught art history at Portland State University (PSU) and at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA).

Kennedy is the co-artistic director and curator of visual art at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) where she curates programs for the annual Time-Based Arts Festival. She joined PICA's staff in 2003, managing public relations and marketing campaigns for the organization.

She is the founding director of Portland's Precipice Fund, a grant for local emerging artists.

In April 2018, Kennedy was awarded the Bonnie Bronson Fellowship Award, a prestigious regional award administered by Reed College that annually awards "a no-strings-attached cash prize to an artist of outstanding merit who lives and works in the Pacific Northwest."

Exhibitions A select list of exhibitions by Kennedy:

Solo exhibitions 2017 – Other Colors, Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland, Oregon 2014 – Kristan Kennedy meets a clock, Soloway, Brooklyn, New York 2013 – Sleeper, Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland, Oregon 2005 – Elizabeth Leach, Portland, Oregon

Group exhibitions 2021 – Unquiet Objects, Disjecta Contemporary Art Center (now Oregon Contemporary), Oregon 2017 – Tomorrow Tomorrow, curated by Wallace Whitney and Stephanie Snyder, Canada, Manhattan, New York 2013 – OO, curated by Rob Halverson, Misako & Rosen, Tokyo, Japan 2013 – Paint Off/Paint On, Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, New York 2013 – Kristan Kennedy and Gunta Stolzl, Zzzzzzz, Brooklyn, New York 2011 – Interior Margins, curated by Stephanie Snyder, Lumber Room, Portland, Oregon

Curation work 2021 – Dreams of Unknown Islands, created by Sasha Wortzel and curated by Kristan Kennedy, Oolite Arts, Miami Beach, Florida 2011 – Between my head and my hand, there is always the face of death, Feldman Gallery + Project Space, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon

Publications