About
KAITLYNN WEBSTER is a multidisciplinary installation artist from Fresno, California, USA currently residing in Co. Clare, Ireland. She received her BA in Art with Honors from California State University, Fresno in 2017, and is currently pursuing her MFA at the Burren College of Art/NUI Galway. She uses mark making and sculpture to visually represent various psychological states and explore the way these states reverberate through the physical body. Her work is an attempt to map out her own psyche and create a contemplative space to encourage her viewers to do the same.
STATEMENT
I can’t get away from churches. The piety of my youth continuously marks my life, as the habits instilled in me as a child make me crave spaces to engage in mindfulness. I often find myself in monasteries and chapels, kneeling before altars and lighting candles, participating in religious traditions that are not mine, but which lend themselves to reflection. This fascination with sacred, contemplative spaces has brought me to my current artistic practice.
My work is an exploration of identity through increased awareness of self – an attempt to delve into and map aspects of my own psyche. I have created a meditative practice that utilizes a minimal range of materials and repetitive processes. In my previous life, I pored over scripture, prayed on my knees, and pondered the state of my soul, yearning for a connection with a higher power; now, I cast and hack away at endless iterations of the same plaster cylinder, fill expanses of paper with tiny painted squares, and draw thousands of minuscule circles, seeking a connection with something inside myself, a higher power in its own right. I want to create a space resonating with a sense of awe and sacredness where the viewer’s thoughts are turned towards the inner self, examining it in reverence.
I can’t get away from churches. The piety of my youth continuously marks my life, as the habits instilled in me as a child make me crave spaces to engage in mindfulness. I often find myself in monasteries and chapels, kneeling before altars and lighting candles, participating in religious traditions that are not mine, but which lend themselves to reflection. This fascination with sacred, contemplative spaces has brought me to my current artistic practice.
My work is an exploration of identity through increased awareness of self – an attempt to delve into and map aspects of my own psyche. I have created a meditative practice that utilizes a minimal range of materials and repetitive processes. In my previous life, I pored over scripture, prayed on my knees, and pondered the state of my soul, yearning for a connection with a higher power; now, I cast and hack away at endless iterations of the same plaster cylinder, fill expanses of paper with tiny painted squares, and draw thousands of minuscule circles, seeking a connection with something inside myself, a higher power in its own right. I want to create a space resonating with a sense of awe and sacredness where the viewer’s thoughts are turned towards the inner self, examining it in reverence.