Kate Warren

Stick to What You're Good At — Stick to What You’re Good At

Don't Say Their Names — Don’t Say Their Names

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KateWarren

Kate Warren

Website: katewarren.co
Ins: @gokateshoot

Artist Statement

Photographs, installations, and sculptures operate as tools of remembrance and resistance in my work, shifting family mythologies to a queer register. My thesis work counteracts the effects of growing up in the dual closets of emotional and queer repression within a conservative Catholic family. Directly referencing images from my family archive, I perform as close and distant kin, both living and dead. Precise and careful use of period details allow the images to oscillate between the vernacular and cinematic. These are combined in larger installations with textile works that use 1960s garments, archival objects, and hand-embellishment to create improvisational sculptures that serve as talismanic storytelling devices.

My portrayals of female masculinity offer soft butchness as an antidote to emotionally restrictive masculinities. The past remains fluid in my work, becoming more mythology than memory; images blur the line between fact and fiction as time seems to fold in on itself across generations. By challenging the veracity of archival narratives, I carve out space for the emergence of queer and feminist futures.

Artist Bio

Kate Warren (b. 1988) is a queer artist and educator based in Syracuse. She explores intimacy, memory, and grief through self-portrait photography and archival interventions that re-examine established histories and exhume hidden pasts. Her work uses shared vulnerability as a catalyst for connection, bridging taboos that include sex, spirituality, and loss. Raised in the mountains of Vermont, connection to community, the land, and rural romanticism underpin her work. She is pursuing an M.F.A. degree at Syracuse University and has exhibited at the California Museum of Photography, Light Work, University of Iowa, and Washington Project for the Arts.