kate hers is a Korean born, American visual artist who grew up not far from Detroit, Michigan and proudly lived for several years deep in the Cass Corridor. She works in various media including but not limited to animation, collage, drawing installation, and video intervention. Her work contemplates the Hegelian concept of evolution of consciousness from self-perception to “absolute” knowledge. Her pieces attempt an intersection of Hegel’s notion of Other with Edward Said’s post-colonial term. She draws from theoretical and historical sources, appropriated images and texts, but works in an intuitive method. Mediating language and culture through visual engagements, kate hers’ works evoke the othering of Otherness, i.e., facing the unknown spirit within herself as a foreign subject.

hers graduated with her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a concentration in Performance and Time Arts and received her MFA in Studio Arts at the University of California, Irvine.   She is a recipient of numerous awards including a Fulbright Fellowship, Blakemore Foundation  Freeman Fellowship, Jacob K. Javits Fellowship and a DAAD Stipendium. While living and working in Seoul for several years, hers studied Korean language, traditional music and dance, and became an activist in several trans-national adoption circles.  Later, she worked in art and urban youth education, non-profit community groups and art administration in Boston, Chicago, and Detroit.

She is working on several projects in the Tibetan populated regions of China.

She currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.