Kate Just facts for kids

Kate Just (born in 1974) is an artist from Australia who was born in America. She is known for her creative and political art using knitting. She makes both sculptures and pictures with yarn. Besides her own art, Kate often works with communities. She creates big art projects for public spaces. These projects often talk about important social issues, like violence against women.

Her Early Life and Learning

Kate Just was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1974. She moved to Melbourne, Australia, in 1994. Kate creates art using knitting, sculpture, clay, and photography. She earned a special degree called a PhD in sculpture from Monash University. She also has a Master of Arts from RMIT University. Before that, she got a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the Victorian College of the Arts. Her PhD research was so good that she won the Mollie Hollman Doctoral Medal. Since 2005, Kate Just has been teaching art at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Kate Just started knitting in the year 2000. This was after a sad family event. Her mother taught her to knit as a way to help her through her grief. Kate believes that knitting is a powerful tool. She thinks it can be personal, political, poetic, and a way to tell stories. She says her knitted artworks often tell stories about her own life and childhood.

Her Artworks

Kate Just makes detailed, large knitted sculptures and pictures. She also works with resin, clay, collage, and photo-based art. Her art often explores how women are shown in art. By using knitting, she shows that craft can be a serious and important type of sculpture. It can also be a way to express ideas or make a political statement.

In her early knitted sculptures, Kate focused on showing women in new ways. She used knitting to rethink old stories and images of women. This included Greek myths like Daphne and Persephone. She also reinterpreted the pink fountain from Hieronymus Bosch's famous painting, "Garden of Earthly Delights." She used these ideas to show her own feelings and experiences.

Kate has also created many art projects that involve communities. These public artworks in cities often focus on important social issues. For example, some of her works raise awareness about violence against women.

One of her art series was shown in New York in 2016. It was called "Feminist Fan." Kate explained that the title shows her respect for other artists and for feminism. Each knitted picture in this series took more than 10,000 stitches and 80 hours to make. She said it was a very dedicated effort. Together, the "Feminist Fan" collection is like a family photo of feminism. It shows her own artistic influences. It also highlights the connections between artists from different times and places.

Kate Just's first art show in a museum was in 2021. It was called "Anonymous Was A Woman" at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. This artwork featured over 140 hand-knitted panels. Each panel had the same words: "Anonymous was a woman." This phrase comes from a famous quote by Virginia Woolf. During the exhibition, Kate held knitting circles and talks about feminism. People from the public joined her with their own craft projects.

Other art shows by Kate include "PROTEST SIGNS" (2022). This show featured hand-knitted copies of real protest signs. More recently, her exhibition "SELF CARE ACTION SERIES" (2023) was at Linden New Art. It had a big grid of 40 hand-knitted text panels. Each panel had a message about self-care. This series explored Kate's year of grief after losing her father. It also looked at why self-care is important for activists and artists.

Art Shows and Exhibitions

Kate Just's art has been shown in over a hundred solo and group exhibitions. In Australia, her work has been seen at places like Craft Victoria and Gertrude Contemporary. It has also been shown at the Centre for Contemporary Photography and the Melbourne Art Fair. Internationally, her art has been displayed in galleries in New York, Finland, China, Austria, Tokyo (Japan), New Delhi (India), New Zealand, and other parts of the US.

In 2018, Kate's art was part of a "word art" exhibition. This show was held at Hugo Michell Gallery in Adelaide.

Art Collections

Some of Kate Just's artworks are kept in important collections. The banners called Safe and Hope are at the Wangaratta Art Gallery. She won the Wangaratta Textile Prize in 2015, which led to this.

Her artwork Paradise is a life-sized knitted installation. It shows a woman in a T-shirt and denim shorts. This piece refers to the story of Persephone from Greek myths. Paradise is part of the collection at the Ararat Gallery TAMA.

Kate Just's art is also in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia. You can find her work at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Artbank, and the City of Port Phillip. Many private collectors in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the USA, and Austria also own her art.

Awards and Recognition

Kate Just has received many awards for her art.

Shortlisted Awards

• Beleura National Works on Paper Prize (2010)
• The Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize (2009)
• The Blake Prize (2009)

Awards She Won

• Siemens-RMIT Fine Art Scholarship (2006)
• Mollie Hollman Doctoral Medal for the best PhD in Art Design and Architecture, Monash University (2013)
• Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award (2015), given by the Wangaratta Art Gallery
• Asialink Residency, Sanskriti Kendra, New Delhi, India (2016)
• Red Gate Gallery, Beijing Residency (2018)
• Australian Fellowship Residency, Art OMI, New York (2019)
• The Incinerator Art For Social Change People’s Choice Award (for COVID-19 Global Quilt) with Tal Fitzpatrick (2020)
• Australia Council for The Arts Visual Art Fellowship (2022)

Her Family Life

Kate Just has been with her Australian wife since about 1994. She met her partner in Australia when she was 20 years old. Kate moved to Australia for good in 1996 when she was 22. They have two children together.