Chateau d'Orquevaux Artist Residency
Kaitlin will be an Artist in Residence for three weeks in the Fall of 2025 at the Chateau d'Orquevaux in France, and was awarded two grants to attend. Kaitlin is a multifaceted artist located in the United States.
From the website:
Art is an act of expressing feelings, thoughts, and observations. Art, in its broadest sense, is a form of communication. It means whatever the artist intends it to mean, and this meaning is shaped by the materials, techniques, and forms it makes use of, as well as the ideas and feelings it creates in its viewers .
"Artist-in-residence programs and other residency opportunities exist to invite artists, academicians, curators, and all manner of creative people for a time and space away from their usual environment and obligations. They provide a time of reflection, research, presentation and/or production. They also allow an individual to explore his/her practice within another community; meeting new people, using new materials, experiencing life in a new location. Art residencies emphasize the importance of meaningful and multi-layered cultural exchange and immersion into another culture."
Artist Statement
My visual art, design, and illustration work are all stream of consciousness style--with very little pre-planned elements. My hope is to immerse you in a space where you see the world through a warped and abstracted lens--hinting at how we see things when hindered by debilitating mental illnesses, and the trauma that we each encounter throughout our lives.I am captivated by the layers that abstraction contains, and how you can peel back each one to reveal something deep, meaningful, and sometimes incredibly personal. Using upcycled materials in my visual art, I love to re-invent everyday items and scrap paper and turn it into something visceral that evokes overwhelming amounts of emotional depth.
I also tend to gravitate towards the mystical in my illustration work, as well as the inexplainable spiritual and natural phenomena encountered in every nook and cranny of daily life. I am drawn to themes like finding hope in the dark-- looking for beauty even when our vision is unwillingly blurred by trauma, injustice, and emotional turmoil.
In a way, I want the stylistic elements to tell a story through the chaotic and unstructured nature of my work. While that narrative may vary from person to person depending on independent life experiences, I want to immerse you into a very specific world that is reminiscent of an attempt to move through our current societal structures. Let it move you, irritate you, intrigue you, fascinate you, or make you feel overwhelmed by something you can't quite pinpoint. Let it do what it does--and I will have done my job.
So, whether you hate my work or love my work (or fall anywhere in between)--I hope you walk away feeling something.
Feel. Be human. That is all I ask.
My Story
An autistic actor and artist born and raised in Arizona, Kaitlin graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2017 with a BA in Theatre Arts from California Lutheran University. While in school, they studied abroad at The University of Oxford in the Fall of 2015. They currently are pursuing theatre on the East Coast, in both Baltimore and New York.
After graduation, she went on to continue various theatre projects in addition to working at a small art gallery--where she helped with installations and selling artwork. She additionally became heavily involved in working with Artists Striving to End Poverty (ASTEP), as well as became one of a handful of nationally chosen exemplary artists to attend the Artist as Citizen Conference at The Juilliard School in 2017. She was one of the founders of ASTEP's West Coast Chapter, and was additionally selected to be invited back to Juilliard to help revamp the Artist as Citizen Conference alongside other dedicated artists and activists in 2019. She has built her visual art resume by being featured in various magazines and shows-- including several issues of Condé Nast's House & Garden: The Art Edit, as well as at the Lincoln Center in the Kenan Fellow's production "Can You Hear Us Now?".
Kaitlin currently resides on the east coast where she continues to work on various art and theatre projects.