Katerina Forrest

BFA Painting

ARTIST STATEMENT: My work is three dresses, which are turned into NFT’s, and photographs documenting performance art. Each dress incorporates domestic fabric- couch and duvet covers, and throw pillows. The dresses, as NFTs, are the recontextualization of craft into an artistic and digital space and a commentary on the manufactured idea of domesticity. The photographs are an exploration and inversion of domesticity. The titles for each work aim to encompass stereotypes about each craft, and encourage people to reevaluate their preconceptions.

I explore the boundaries of what it means to be at “home” through performance art and photography. I explore domesticity through my family’s Slavic traditions. These actions are integral to care, attention, and labor, shared by generations of women. I view domesticity as something nuanced, and not necessarily tied to the interior of a home. As James Trefil writes, the idea that humankind is “at home” in a controlled environment, secluded from the rest of “nature” is a product of enlightenment. We are more than our capacity to think, and we are kinesthetic beings. The process of embroidering and performance art brings to light the kinesthetic aspects of ourselves that we neglect. I have embroidered for hundreds of hours, and embroider everywhere. I am working against the emphasis on output versus process.

I focus on textile work, embroidery, photography, and performance art. Within the movement towards hyper technologization, and minimalism in design, the appreciation for non-functional beauty and investment of labor into commodities is on the decline. More specifically, the appreciation of labor that goes into artwork or creation of objects is predicated on an economic basis, rather than through an artistic celebration. This project illustrates an appreciation for labor and welcomes it within the gallery space. I am using the NFT format as a platform for craft to be moved into digital space and to further re-contextualize the tangibility of a domestic environment online.