Katy Itter is an artist living and working in the Hudson Valley. She grew up in Seattle in the 90’s surrounded by the constant misty melancholia the city is most famous for. These moods would later influence her outlook and artwork. From an early age, Katy felt the power that artwork had for self expression and exploration. She received her bachelors in arts from University of Washington where she majored in Interdisciplinary Visual Arts. This was a new program, and it fit her well as her artwork tends to blur the lines between digital and traditional craft mediums. After college, Katy continued to work in the contemporary arts as a gallery attendant at the Henry Art Gallery. As a contemporary museum, most of the work was highly conceptual and not always pretty to look at. Her time spent in the galleries had a heavy influence on her work and taught her that the value of artwork is not dictated by its aesthetics but the deeper meanings it communicates to us. In 2013, she moved to New York where she joined the MFA Sculpture program at SUNY New Paltz. The experience of grad school allowed Katy to synthesize a body of work around issues that were personal yet universal. Struggling with body acceptance and eating disorders has been a significant part of her life, and it has come through as an obsession with an unattainable perfection in her work. In the environment of an academic art program like New Paltz’s sculpture department, Katy was able to analyze the things that she learned during her time at the Henry and create work that confronts societal expectations of beauty. Ideas of obsession and repetition resurfaced after grad school when she worked as a display artist at Anthropologie. A lot of the work at the store was made from cheap everyday materials found in hardware stores. This afforded her the opportunity to experiment with alternative materials as well as practice repetitive processes in artmaking. Today, Katy works as a cast and mold maker in a costume shop in Cornwall, NY, where she makes weapons and armor for television, film and theme parks. She is also an adjunct professor of studio art at several schools in Hudson Valley.


ARTIST STATEMENT:

Social media has had an enormous impact on our culture and the way we construct expectations. It has given us a perfection filtered window into the lives of everyone around us, and completely changed our definitions of success. In my work, I use video, fiber art, and casting to reflect on my own relationship with society and mass media and how it affects my identity.  Personal experiences help me create pieces that explore self love in a world that is constantly showering us with ideas of social norms and unrealistic aspirations. Patterns, repetition and ritual frequently appear in my work, revealing a religious nature and expressing an obsession with an unattainable perfection.
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You can find my work floating around with Feminist Fiber Art, a collective focused on promoting intersectional feminism by creating community, supporting local artists, fundraising for feminist causes, and making political art.