“Caroline Kent explores and challenges modernist formalism to create a new language of painterly abstraction that directly relates to the spaces we occupy, inhabit, and experience.” – Jessica Hong, Associate Curator of Global Contemporary Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth

“Through a fluency of language with histories of abstraction, Kent extends and alters this legacy through potent means. Both Awardees bodies of work feel particularly relevant to the current moment in which we live and the futures we endeavor to imagine.”” – Jennifer Carty, Associate Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, The Smart Museum at University of Chicago

Caroline Kent is a Chicago based visual artist that explores the relationship between language, translation and abstraction through her expanded painting practice. Kent speculates in both the potential and the limitations of language, and ultimately questions the modernist canon of abstraction.  

Caroline Kent earned a BS in Art at Illinois State University (1998) and an MFA at the University of Minnesota (2008). Kent has exhibited nationally at The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, The DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, The California African American Museum, LA, and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Kent has received grants from The Pollock Krasner Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, and The Jerome Foundation. She is currently represented by Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles.

Caroline Kent is the recipient of the 2020 Liberty Specialty Markets Artadia Award.