Kate Tupper

Kate Tupper is a Nakusp-based sculpture artist. After graduating the ‘C’ level welding program in 2004, the following years working in trades and heavy construction have given Kate a firsthand view of traditional uses of materials. A lifelong love of craft, nature, and ecology influence her method, texture, and composition. Sculpture and storytelling have always come easily to Kate, and her earliest memories are of making things. Growing up beside forest and orchards, on the beach and in the garden, her studios revolved as they do, depending on weather and season. Kate spends her summers as lead to Shambhala Music Festival site’s Art team, designing, facilitating, and mentoring large scale multi-media installations. She finds that the juxtaposition of leading a large team in a fast-paced environment and the often solitary process of building sculpture the rest of the year offers a healthy variety of design and execution in two very different situations. In 2017, Kate’s project Heavenly Bodies, a large steel and illuminated resin planetarium, premiered at Revelstoke's Luna Public Arts festival. It carried on the following year, 2018, to show at Calgary’s Beakerhead as well as Nuit Blanche Winnipeg. Multiple wins and leases through several years of competition at Castlegar Sculpturewalk were building blocks, and in 2017 Kate was recognized by Canada Council as a professional artist in Canada. Public art has been a focus for several years, but 2019 saw Kate focussing on smaller, more intricate pieces with a new body of work, Dynamis.