The Kenneth R. Trapp Craft Assistant & Curatorial Fellowship is an 11-month fellowship created to support post-graduate and early-career curators, arts researchers, or art historians.
The Trapp Fellowship is designed to provide the fellow with the opportunity, resources, and collection to utilize and hone the skills they gained through their graduate education. Each fellow will have the opportunity to work with the gallery and program team to identify and craft a fellowship that meets the needs of Arrowmont and furthers the career of the fellow.
The 2025-2026 Kenneth R. Trapp Craft Assistant/Curatorial Fellow, Katherine Gemperline, has joined us for this year long fellowship! We are pleased to have her with us this year!
To learn more about Katherine, continue reading below!
Katherine Gemperline holds an MFA in Curatorial Studies from the University of Kentucky and dual BAs in Studio Art with a concentration in Painting and Drawing and Computer Science from Xavier University. Her work has focused on how different cultures express beauty standards, especially through the grotesque its ties to moral “rightness.” She curated Beyond Grotesque and Disordered Creatures, exhibitions that explore the grotesque body, abjection, mental and physical health, and the destabilization of gender norms. Katherine’s approach bridges critical theory, visual culture, and artistic practice to interrogate how beauty and ethics intersect. Her curatorial practice invites audiences to question aesthetic norms and their deeper cultural implications.
