I Shall Not Survive You
In December 2022, Kate had her first solo art exhibition, I Shall Not Survive You, at Kink Contemporary in Cleveland, Ohio. The show featured 10 living floral sculptures and 21 cut-and-paste collage works.
Artist Statement
The title of this multimedia show is taken from a book of Victorian floriography, the symbolic language of flowers. Floriography is an ancient cryptological practice reflecting the psychic life of flowers to communicate emotions to their viewers. Flowers, like symbols, point to something beyond themselves, an emotional depth of reality unseen, but felt in the universal experiences of love and loss. In “I shall not survive you,” Kate Rutter’s floral installations create portals into the artist’s personal history; at first thrown into the woes of pregnancy, the artist finds resilience as a single mother, and reprieve, joy, and healing through communion with flowers.
While these works carry the rhythms of travel and longing, the blossoming and dissolution of romantic love, and the transience of her son’s father, this show intends to uplift and transform. Rutter’s collages and floral pieces inform each other; while collage is fragmentary in nature, each floral work attempts to capture and totally heal a distinct emotion experienced in her spiritual journey into motherhood.
The brevity of this show is intentional. In this week-long experience of impermanence, each bloom will peak in its beauty and vitality, and then fade into a new form. Rutter’s use of an organic material allows for a transfer of energy and healing from one life to another.
Photos above by Riley Beard
The images below were captured by Kelley Schaffer on the seventh and final day of the exhibit as flowers had reached decay.
“As you witness the natural cycle of a flower (closed, open, and decayed) without judgment, it becomes easier to view your own rhythms with the same sense of non-judgment and detachment. The inevitable transition of flowers is a sacred example of the beautiful phases we carry within ourselves in all realms of life. We are constantly blooming and dying and blooming again.” - Kate Rutter
