Kathy McTavish is a media composer, cellist and installation artist whose work blends data, text, code, sound and abstract, layered moving images. Her recent work has focused on creating generative methods for building networked, multichannel video and sound environments. She creates cross-sensory, polyphonic landscapes which flow from the digital web into physical spaces.

Her background in cello performance, mathematics, ecology, music theory and coding informs her work as a composer and multimedia artist. She is drawn to multi-threaded, dynamical systems and chance-infused, emergent patterns. She is interested in the infinite, fluid, cross-border between.

McTavish has created installations for both traditional gallery spaces and for non-traditional storefronts, abandoned buildings, root cellars, cathedrals, barns, warehouse elevators, alleyways and silos, and loves to work with physical structures ::: textures, pipes, beams, dusty windows. A critical part of her installation work is the resonance of a space and its ambient sounds and silences. She dwells in the creation and evolution of a work ::: in sounding a space, marking its walls, tuning the whole. She believes art has the potential to open subliminal, submerged aspects of ourselves ::: to foster reflection and transformation.

In late 2018, Kathy started working with her machines and a computer controlled, long-arm, quilting machine.  The result is new work that can be considered an archive or work product of her machines - generative textile drawings.  This new work was exhibited in her first solo-exhibition at JNG. count. map. pulse. breathe., Dec. 2019 to Feb. 2020

Awards
● McKnight Composer Fellowship (2020)
● Jerome Foundation Artist Fellowship (2019-2020)
● Bell Museum Showcase Artist Commission (2019-2020)
● Northern Lights.mn Art(ists) on the Verge Commission (2018)
● Tweed Museum of Art Artist Commission (2017)
● Duluth Depot Foundation Artist of the Year (2017)
● Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant in Media (2017, 2014, 2012)
● Jerome Foundation General Program Commission (2015, 2012, 2011)
● Northern Spark Artist Commission (2015)
● Walker Art Center / Northern Spark Artist Commission (2014)
● Made Here / Hennepin Theater Trust Artist Commission (2016)
● American Composers Forum JFund Commission (2013, 2009)
● Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble Composers Residency (2013)
● Creative Community Leadership Institute Fellowship (2013 - funded by the Bush Foundation and administered by Intermedia Arts)
● Arrowhead Regional Arts Council (13 grants awarded 2010 to 2020)
● Puffin Foundation Artist Grant for Video, Film or Radio (2013)
● United States Artists Projects / Cheswatyr Foundation Matching Grant (2011)

Education
● Ph.D. coursework in Theoretical Ecology and Scientific Visualization (all but dissertation), University of Minnesota
● M.S. Applied Mathematics (Ecological Modeling), University of Minnesota
● B.S. Mathematics (Economics minor) - University of Minnesota, Duluth
● Sign Language Interpreting Certificate, St. Paul Technical College
● The School of Impermanence - self-designed curriculum in Music Theory, Digital Media, Poetics (funded by the Jerome Foundation)
● Independent study in cello performance and composition, arts and culture, liberal studies