Kate Garner

Kate Garner
Kate Garner
Birth name	Kathryn Mary Garner
Born	Wigan, Lancashire
Spouse	Emit Bloch
Nationality	English
Field	Artist
Training	Blackpool
Movement	Blitz Kids. New Wave

Kate Garner (born Kathryn Mary Garner; 9 July 1954) is an English photographer, fine artist and singer.

Born in Wigan, Lancashire to Anne Philomena Shannon and George Sandeman Garner, a sailor and factory worker, Garner was expelled from high school at the age of 16 and a became a runaway who joined The Children Of God. To escape the grasp of the cult she hitchhiked from London through Eastern Europe to India in 1970, where she lived for a year as a traveller before being located by her parents. She attended art school at Blackpool in the North of England and later moved to London, where she began to both photograph and model for up and coming magazines such as The Face and i-D.

Garner first came widely into the public eye as one third of the 1980s avant-garde, new wave pop project Haysi Fantayzee, along with other members Jeremy Healy and Paul Caplin. Emanating from street arts scenes such as the Blitz Kids that were cropping up in London in the early 1980s, Haysi's music combined reggae, country and electro with political and sociological lyrics couched as nursery rhymes.^[1]

Catapulted to stardom by their visual sensibilities, Haysi Fantayzee combined their extreme clothes sense - described^[2] as combining white Rasta, tribal chieftain and Dickensian styles - with a quirky musical sound comparable to other new wave musical pop acts of the era, such as Bow Wow Wow, Adam and the Ants and Bananarama.^[3] They appeared several times on the BBC Television programme Top of The Pops. Despite being touted by Bowie producer Tony Visconti as the next big thing,^[4] the group quickly disbanded after releasing three hit singles John Wayne Is Big Leggy, Shiny Shiny and Holy Joe, and an album that went gold.^[5]

Garner then returned to painting, photography and video, launching a successful media arts career, starting with her collaboration with Sinéad O'Connor, in which she created memorable images of O'Connor for her 1987 debut, The Lion and the Cobra. Garner has also photographed many musicians and celebrities. Among them are: Dr. Dre, Leigh Bowery, JT LeRoy, Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, David Bowie, Cameron Diaz, PJ Harvey, John Galliano, Björk and Kate Moss.Her work has appeared in the American and British versions of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. She has also worked for W magazine, Interview, GQ, Vanity Fair, Elle and The Sunday Times.

She had her first multimedia exhibition in February 2007 at the Painter's Gallery on Charing Cross Road, London and, a year later, had an exhibition in San Francisco, California titled 'Identity Artists'.^[6] Her work was in a group show at the Riflemaker Gallery in January 2009.^[7] Garner's work is available for sale at Galerie13 in Paris.^[8] Bankrobber Gallery, London and Gallery 618 in St Louis,Missouri. Her work has appeared at the Affordable Art Fair in London 2009, Brussels 2010 and Paris 2010, London 2012. She was sponsored by the Arts Council for her show at The Future Gallery off Charing Cross Road in January 2010.

She designed a wallpaper collection, which is archived at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and was in a touring exhibition with the Whitworth Gallery from 2010-2012.

Garner occasionally performs live acoustic music with her husband, Emit Bloch, with whom she lives in London, UK and San Francisco, CA. They have one daughter, Grace Garner.

References

External links

• Haysi Fantayzee biography
• http://www.kategarner.org
• http://www.deangelisandgarner.com/shop/page.php?xPage=about
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/manchester/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8494000/8494102.stm.