Erie Arts & Culture is thrilled to announce that the agency will welcome Los Angeles-based artist Kate Sikorski as the next visiting artist in residence. Kate will visit Erie on the heels of Stephon Senegal’s February residency. She will arrive in Erie on March 2nd and serve as the visiting artist in residence through March 23rd.
Kate’s mixed media drawings experiment with ways of portraying dialogue, openness, listening, agency, personhood, and collaborative representation. Although primarily working from direct observation, Kate’s work is concept driven, attempting to subtly activate the viewer to consider solutions to unsolved ethical problems rooted in representation, seeing, and being seen.
Kate received her Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2006. She continued her education at California State University, Long Beach, where in 2011 she earned a Master of Fine Arts. Kate has participated in exhibitions at the Torrance Art Museum, El Segundo Art Museum, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Beta Main, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Central Park Gallery, and Alexander Salazar Fine Art.
While in Erie, Kate will conduct person-to-person interviews with community members, which will be recorded. Interviewees will be documented through dialectical portrait drawings. Interactive frames will be built that vibrate with the voiced opinions of those sitting for interviews. The series created by Kate will represent the faces of Erie in a shared speech, characterized by a more democratic balance of vulnerability and power between artist and model.
Kate has already initiated conversations with artists in the region. She is in communication with Byron Rich, a visual artist who integrates science, data, and technology into his work. Byron is also the Assistant Professor of Electronic and Intermedia Art at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Byron and his students will assist Kate with building and coding the tech-enabled frames.
