Fall 2018 / woodblock prints / 16”x24”
This printmaking project was conceived out of two ideas. The first was the idea of the ‘uncanny’ and more specifically the uncanny within the domestic sphere. About this notion, Maria Kaika says in her essay Domesticating Nature: “By putting one small detail of the familiar environment ‘out of place’ – yet still within the familiar domestic sphere–by revealing the contradictions and the uncanny qualities of modern living, nothing remains the same; the sublime, normalized character of modern dwelling is upset.” I saw the vase of flowers as the ideal image of domestication and femininity that could be simultaneously beautiful yet complex, eerie, and unruly. Through the use of texture and abstraction I wanted to highlight the “uncanniness” of the domestication both of nature and of women.
The second idea comes from ancient Greek myth. The myth of the invention of drawing according to Pliny the Elder goes like this: Some time in the sixth century BC, Kora of Sicyon, daughter of the ancient Greek clay sculptor Butades, in a desperate plea to preserve the presence of her departing lover traced his shadow on the wall. The conclusion by most every account of this story is that Butades, having witnessed his daughter in the act, invented drawing. What I conclude from this myth instead is that drawing was certainly invented thousands of years prior (and not by a Greek man), and that the technique of projection was conceived by a woman.
Summer 2020
Winter 2018 / Blank Space Fairytale Architecture competition
A competition hosted by Blank Space asked applicants to imagine, through images and text, one’s own architectural fairytale. The Basement of Babel imagines a library housing all the destroyed texts in history, stored beneath the ruins of Breugel’s Babel.
Images produced by Katie Kelly (ink, charcoal, photoshop); Accompanying story written by Ryan White
Fall 2018 / woodblock print / 14” x 16”
Summer 2017 / pencil and gouache
Finalist for the 2018 Madison Lane and Rugby Road Charitable Trust Visual Arts Prize
Fall 2018
Ethel Studio is a new company making beautiful, handcrafted meditation cushions made from fabric offcuts salvaged from the fashion industry and based in Minneapolis. I was approached by Ethel Studio this fall to create a “how-to” series of illustrations showing the many ways one can meditate using these unique cushions.
Lunar / Fall 2017
Issue 38 cover design for University of Virginia literary journal, Meridian, based on a mid-century US government lunar map
Fall 2018 / model and film
This project explored model making and digital and analogue techniques of animation to create a short film about a mystical, foggy forest in Central Park–The Atmospheric Arboretum.
Spring 2018 / India ink, pencil
A series of drawings exploring time and material memory in the Meadowlands, NJ
Winter 2016 / pen and ink
Fall 2018 / woodblock print / 14” x 16”
Fall 2018 / lithograph print / 12” x 18”
Summer 2015 / gouache and pencil
Uncle Truscott’s Truffles commissioned these hand painted chocolate box inserts, illustrating the various truffle and toffee flavors.
