“Loss can be a compass, and nostalgia can be a process of re-encountering what we grieve, miss and treasure,” says northern New Mexico-based artist Kat Kinnick. “As we engage with what we miss, the memory begins to change and remembrance becomes a creative process in itself.” Born in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque and now living and working south of Santa Fe, Kinnick’s work as a painter, illustrator, printmaker and ceramicist often celebrates the abundant diversity of the wildlife and wilderness of the high desert. Her upcoming show at Hecho a Mano represents a shift in Kinnick’s artistic philosophy. “I’ve felt so saddened by everything that's happening in the world right now,” she says. “It feels as if all the time and energy and creativity we’ve put into making the world a better place was for nothing.” 

While her 2024 show at Hecho a Mano, “A Benevolent Force,” celebrated “the energy of resistance in battle and powerful forces, unflinching amidst the darkness,” Kinnick now feels a profound sense of fatigue. Still, she’s using her artistic practice to process this feeling of hopelessness. She describes walking in the desert near her home when a voice popped into her head that said “All is not yet lost.” This show sprang from that gentle voice: a vision of a path forward in recognizing “the tangible vitality in our lives, plant life, the days of beautiful weather, animal sightings, and the reality that we have food and shelter and a vibrant community of kind, creative allies who care, and the legacy of activists and artists whose footsteps we continue to walk.” Even amidst the destruction, Kinnick says, there is an ease in gratitude.

Memento Vivere is part autobiography, part fiction and fantasy: through a variety of media including gouache, oil paint, limited edition screen printing, risograph and paper mache, Kinnick creates a body of work that builds on her breadth of experience with animal subjects and includes human portraits. “For many years, I’ve worked to convey animal expression in a way that a human audience can recognize and identify with,” she says, explaining that “the wordless communication that exists between species and the unique power that has to communicate through an image” defines her approach to portraits of both human and other-than-human subjects, and underlying them all is her love and curiosity for the people and creatures in her life.  The show’s theme is a corollary to the concept of Memento Mori, which Kinnick has always felt drawn to: “To me, death is a part of life, and enhances your experience,” she says. “Memento Vivere is inspired by this concept of Memento Mori but is about remembering to live.”  Kinnick has carried a keen sense of mortality since the sudden loss of her father shortly after she graduated college, and she calls this and growing up in a time of climate collapse the root of the tenderness in her approach to painting. “Death holds the preciousness of life held against a background of loss to the unknown,” she says, explaining that painting can capture what she wants to hold onto, revealing the magic beneath the surface of daily life “before it is inevitably lost to that mystery—the gift of friendship, the empowering, enlivening force of our community, the uniqueness of each person’s perspective and experience.”

The show grew out of twenty 8 x 10 paintings inspired by favorite visual memories from Kinnick’s November 2024 residency in Oaxaca, which will also be translated into a risograph book made by Polvoh Press: masks, city life, ancient ceramics, textiles and wildlife of the region.  Kinnick sees the role of an artist as part curator, part craftsperson and part innovator. “An artist listens to the heartbreak of the world and wonders what the collective needs,” she says, adding that this body of work “asks how we can cope with all the suffering of the world in this unique time, and hopefully serves as a salve for people, a reminder to live in gratitude for life is a rich, magical tapestry.” Kinnick’s work has always fostered a profound connection to nature, and the weight of humanity’s destructive impact can feel crushing. She notices how it can paralyze her and others in her community: “I want this work to help them feel less alone, and I hope that it can uplift others that are struggling, and be a breath of fresh air, awakening myths and stories inside themselves that they can then share with us all,” she says. Memento Vivere will open at Hecho a Mano on Friday, May 2 and will be on view until June 2, 2025.