I donate 50 percent of all proceeds from online sales of my prints to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, a Canadian organization that helps to ease the pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa by funding community-level projects that provide care and support to women, orphans, grandmothers and people living with AIDS.
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I first picked up photography in 1998 when I dropped out of school for a year and bought an old, second-hand 35 mm Yashica. For a few years my camera and I were inseparable, but after I graduated with an English degree and started working full-time, it fell away.
Becoming a mother in 2006 changed everything. Before that, I had become a government drone who just went to work and came home to watch television in between panic and agoraphobia attacks, lacking any real critical engagement with the world. (What happened to that angry, idealistic university student???) With motherhood, everything became more intense and important, and suddenly I had something to say. I picked up the camera again and haven’t stopped since.
My work has been exhibited locally and internationally, including New York City, and is included in The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art (2011).
I think photographs should make you wonder.
~ Kate Wilhelm
Guelph, Ontario
Email me at kate(at)peripheralvision(dot)ca
Curated group shows
Biennial Emerging Artist Exhibition, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON.
June to August 2012
Center Forward, Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, Colorado.
May 6 to June 11, 2011
Hard Knocks, Elora Centre for the Arts, Elora, ON.
March 24 to May 1, 2011
New Normal, Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, Colorado.
November 2010
Mother/mother-, A.I.R. Gallery, New York City.
December 2009
still standing, Alma Gallery, Guelph, Ontario.
April-May 2009
Publications
The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art. Ed. by Myrel Chernick and Jennie Klein, Demeter Press, 2011.
A Book of Beds. Published by Foam Magazine, 2011.
F-Stop Magazine. Issue 48 Relations, 2011.
“Many Scars” Deep Sleep Magazine, Issue 4.
“Lunenburg Invasion” Deep Sleep Magazine, Issue 2
Two-Powered: A Diary of Motherhood and Apple Pie, Kate Wilhelm, 2009. (self-published)
Awards and Honours
2011 Critical Mass Finalist
2011 Flash Forward Emerging Photographer
Selected for live auction at 2011 RMG Exposed
The Pikto Prize: Best Photojournalism/Documentary, 2010 RMG Exposed