About
MK is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator based in Pittsburgh, PA. She holds a BFA with focuses in Painting and Ceramics from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Her work is traditionally focused on surreal narrative “dreamscapes” and figurative based work - often using collage, painting, and ceramics as her chosen mediums. MK co-founded MadKat Studios in 2021 where she holds her studio practice and exhibits local artists and vendors. MK and their partner, Madeleine Boucher established MadKat Studios to bring a bit of the thriving arts community of Edinboro that they had thrived within, to the blue-collar town of Elizabeth, Pennsylvania.
Their goal in opening MadKat Studios is to create a space to work and collaborate together, while making the arts accessible to all in the small town of Elizabeth. They exhibit local and emerging artists while also servicing their community in operating as the first ever arts space in the heart of Elizabeth. MK’s philanthropic background, volunteering countless hours in nursing homes, community centers, as well as organizing donations for houseless folx around the PGH area, has instilled a desire to give further arts education at an affordable price to the deserving citizens of the surrounding areas. MK teaches private and group art lessons at MadKat Studios and is operating as the current Director and Curator of Madkat Studios. MK completed a residency in the fall of 2021 at Fish Factory Creative Center in Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland. Her work has been shown regionally, internationally and is collected across the United States and internationally.
“As a Queer, second generation American citizen, I feel as though it is my duty to create a warm and empathetic environment for all who walk through our gallery and studio. Often, in my youth I felt ostracized from my peers - as though I could not understand or begin to interoperate where their cravings and interests were coming from. I want to offer up to the children of my local area a space in which they will never feel judged for who they are, what they have and their unknowing desire to create from their souls.”
Artist Statement
The ideology of reincarnation prompts how I interact with not only other living beings, but every physical and invisible element of my life. If our karma is undone or recycled timelessly, then how will this life path be different? Through the lens of divine intervention I seek to bring forward imagery of mysticism; the commonplace is no exception.
The homes we have forged, set in natural and man made settings often elicit feelings of chaos, longing, comfort and the unseen root system of our belonging. When do the streams we float down diverge from prior timelines? Where do we, as humans, fit into this world? Was it really created for us or do we merely exist to bear witness to its grandeur? My work explores personal curiosities, the desire for understanding, and a quest for foresight into the providential. Color, shadow and movement drive my making process in order to balance where the observational imagery meets the imagined.
A sacred moment occurs each time my hands reach out into my consciousness, in exploration of why my soul has become encapsulated in this body and what might my purpose be in this lifetime. I believe before anything else, I am a storyteller. Irish folklore and my upbringing in Catholicism, influence my desire to question that which is seen as taboo. While I am no longer a member of this faith, the ancient narratives told to me as a child are often deconstructed and repurposed in my work.
I dance atop a timeline of my lineage, observant of patterns familiarized in our heritage. Looking towards my immigrant ancestors for guidance in a world I will never understand but do not cease to question brings wonder into every relationship I hold with animate and in animate alike.