Biography - Kathy Weaver

Kathy Weaver explores areas of science and technology through robots and organic macro worlds. Utilizing the fiber media, Weaver’s airbrushes paintings on bridal satin, then embroiders and quilts the work. Her unusual designs often include robots and/or cellular, organic forms. Trained as a painter, Weaver’s early work was of a political nature. She gravitated to the medium of fabric as a way to engage a larger audience to view the message of her works. An example of her early fiber work is a series of three quilts, “Guns Are Us” portraying handgun violence in Chicago, which is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City.


Weaver exhibits nationally and internationally. Recently, she received an Illinois Arts Council Grant, 2012. In addition, she received the Cathy Rasmussen Emerging Artist Memorial Award at Quilt National ’07 and will also be in this year’s upcoming Quilt National. Along with the solo show at Concordia University Chicago in March 2012, Weaver had a major solo show at The Art Center in Highland Park, IL in June and July 2012. She has had solo shows at the Chicago State University, the Gordon Center for Integrative Science (University of Chicago) and Woman Made Gallery in Chicago. She exhibited in more than 60 group shows around the country including in New York, Washington DC, Miami, Pittsburgh, and San Diego.

She has received many other awards and can be seen in various books and publications. She has been a repeat fellow at the Ragdale Foundation and the Hambidge Center for the Arts. Gallery19, Chicago, Illinois, represents Weaver and has taken her work to SOFA Chicago. Weaver was trained at the University of Cincinnati and received her M.A. in painting and art history from Bowling Green State University. She received a fellowship from the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff, Alberta, Canada and studied batiking at the Narong Studios, Jogjakarta, Indonesia. She studied at the Institute for European Studies and at the Art Academy of Vienna and has traveled extensively in Asia, Europe, North Africa and South America and Cuba. Weaver taught at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in October, 2013.

Unless otherwise noted, all photographs of art work are by Tom Van Eynde. Portrait by Nelson W. Armour.