The #bullyculture series by Katy Kretz (MFA '94) entitled Common Denominator, explores entitlement and oppression in the myriad of forms that are perpetuated in our society, including art-historically unprecedented images dealing with rape culture. A 68-page catalog will be published with the exhibition. This exhibition will be featuring painting, sculpture, pyrography, and embroidery and will be on display Thursday, January 24 to Saturday, March 24, 2018, in the Cora Miller Gallery at York College, where Kretz is an Associate Professor of Art.

IMAGE: Cognitive Dissonance: Buttercup, 2015, embroidery on black cotton velvet, 16" x 12"

Kretz’s work has appeared in over 95 international newspapers and has been featured repeatedly in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, The Huffington Post, The Atlanta Journal/Constitution, ArtPapers, and Surface Design, as well as appearing in Esquire, Vanity Fair Italy, ELLE Japon, and PASAJES DISENO magazines. Her controversial painting, “Blessed Art Thou”, was covered by hundreds of international news sources, and continues to be published in magazines and university textbooks worldwide, almost a decade later.

Katy is on the Fulbright Specialist Roster through 2021. She has received the MD Council For The Arts Grant, NC Arts Council Grant, The South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship, The Florida Visual Arts Fellowship, a Millay Colony Residency, a Hambidge Center Fellowship, the Southeastern College Art Conference's 2016 award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement, and was a 2013 Trawick Prize Finalist. After working as an Associate Professor and BFA Director at Florida International University for ten years, she currently works in her studio while giving workshops and lectures at various universities. She is currently at work on a book, a step-by-step guide to finding your visual voice.

The exhibition will not be suitable for children and may be triggering for some adults, but will be memorable, jaw-droppingly prescient and challenging.