Kate Steciw is a visual artist originally from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, working primarily with photography. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
If you had to explain your work to a stranger, what would you say? I would say that I strive to create work that reflects and dissects a rapidly changing set of attitudes and aesthetics in an effort to expose formal elements within those schema that, for better or worse have changed our perceptions of the world.
What kinds of things are influencing your work right now? Major influences right now are mirages and optical illusions, television, the internet, gaming culture, alteredness, entropy….
What are some recent, upcoming or current projects you are working on? I recently completed a book called The Strangeness of This Idea that is now available through Hassla books and I am wrapping up a week long residency on STATE. Next, I will be working on some projects that incorporate 3D animation techniques, web design, sculptural elements, and home made holograms so I am very excited to get back into the studio!
What is one the bigger challenges you and/or other artist are struggle with these days, and how do you see it developing? I think one of the most interesting challenges artists (humans) are facing is learning how to cope with the ways that technological advances and the pace at which these advances are made have changed the way we conceive of our world and ourselves.
What artists are you interested in right now? Josef Albers, Lucas Blalock, Joseph Beuys, Michelle Ceja, Adam Cruces, Otto Dix, Marcel Duchamp, Sam Falls, Parker Ito, Brian Khek, Sol LeWitt, Tom Moody, Jon Rafman, Ryder Ripps, Micah Schippa, JOGGING, Heidi Norton …
How has your work developed within the past year? My father passed away last December and it pretty much blew my world apart – concepts of entropy, illusion and abstraction became major motivators.
What’s your favorite thing about New York City? As long as I have lived in NYC, I still feel like I could make a right turn and end up in a world I have never seen and could never have conceived of before that moment and it may have been there for centuries or it may have come into existence only moments before.
What was the last exhibition you saw that stuck out to you? Joseph Bueys at Dia Beacon.
If you had one wish what would it be? For more… of everything, faster.
What do you do when you’re not working on art? I am a professional retoucher and a marathon runner.
If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go and why? I am obsessed with Antarctica. It is completely irrational so I can’t tell you why.