Katherine Ross is a ceramic sculptor who has been a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago faculty since 1981. She is served for decades as the Chair of the Ceramics Department. From 2008 to 2010 she served as the Interim Dean of Graduate Studies. She received her bachelor’s degree in 1976 from the State University of New York at Fredonia and her MFA in 1980 from Tulsa University. Previous to SAIC she taught briefly at the University of Delaware.
Exhibitions of her work include the 65th Scripps Annual, Jingdezhen National Ceramic Museum, China; A-B Projects, Los Angeles; Sanbao Ceramic Art Museum, China; The Centers For Disease Control Museum in Atlanta, SOFA Chicago; NY State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, NY; Kohler Art Center, WI; San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, TX; and the Urban Center For Contemporary Art, MI. Katherine is the recipient of many awards and grants including the Chicago Artists International Program Travel Grant, Arts Midwest/NEA Grant, Indiana State Arts Commission Master Fellowship, Banff Center for the Arts Residency, and the Williamson Memorial Artist In Residence at Indiana State University. She has been named a Walter Gropius Master Artist for 2012 by the Huntington Museum. She is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics, Geneva, Switzerland; an invited member of the International Arts & Design Experts Committee of the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing; and a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts.
Katherine’s work is published widely in periodicals and books on ceramic art in the U.S., Great Britain, China, Australia, and Switzerland. Currently, she is writing a book.
Visit Katherine Ross’ website and Instagram page.
Featured work
Human and Non-human Interactions with Clay, 2013-2019
Tsetsegov Erasure Series, 2008-2019
As a ceramic sculptor, Katherine Ross is interested in the historical role of porcelain as a status symbol valued for purity and strength, elegance and propaganda. Her work has always been concerned with the complex relationship we have to this material and the subtle, coded ways it operates within our culture. Her expertise is in ceramic production for large installations addressing biological technology, disease and prophylaxis, notions of the obsolete and personal histories.
