My name is Kate, and I am an artist, writer, designer, and conversationalist. I’m so thrilled to be a part of Carnelian Art Gallery - where creativity and communal connection are the foundation - as their new Gallery Assistant. I absolutely adore spaces where I can interact with and experience people and art every day, and I’m grateful to be able to do that here.

A little about me: I was born in Kamchatka, Siberia. I was moved from Kamchatka at a very young age and raised in Northeastern Wisconsin. I moved 2 months after my high school graduation to Los Angeles, California, where I began working professionally in film after directing, writing, acting in, editing, and producing several of my own shorts and two documentaries in the Midwest. I began in theater as an actor, and by 14 had begun directing for my high school, which I continued to do all four years, while also writing, directing, and performing in dozens of original pieces. However it was my professional photography career, which I had begun at the age of 12, that acted as the foundation of my move, and I relocated to begin a career led by my photo visual and film aspirations and propelled by the passion I have for creation and collaboration in the city.

I spent several years in Los Angeles on and off, adding clay to my practice there in 2022-2023 (a medium I loved but hadn’t had an opportunity to participate in up until then). I first returned to the Midwest from LA in 2018, and it was then that I moved to Madison for the first time. I was hired as a social media visual director for a local shop here originally, then working as director for the store’s participation in the 2019 MODA fashion show. I then transferred into a photography internship for a locally-based marketing company, before I moved to Chicago that summer where I worked in photography and painted for three years throughout the pandemic. In 2022, I went to Miami, where I painted on commission for three months. I returned back to Chicago, moved back to Los Angeles, then returned to Madison, where I have been since.

As you can tell, Madison has been my middle ground in between this journey, and a fun and stable ground where I’ve been able to play and rest and also work in photography, social media visual direction, marketing, performance art (most recently at Broom St. Theater this past November), hand-built sculpture, and design; I now apply many of these skills here at Carnelian Art Gallery.

I’m grateful to be in Madison where there is such a focus on community and connection through the arts; I feel I understand this aspect of the city through my own upbringing, as my childhood town was similar. Much of my practice and work displays my love for collaboration and its necessity. Though it is smaller than LA, Chicago, or Miami - and many do ask me, “Well, what are you doing here?” - I appreciate Madison as an avid city person as it still does allow for so many international and worldly connections, granting me the honor and the joy of socializing with so many amazing and incredible people.

When I am not lost in thought or engrossed in conversation, I am writing, enjoying nature, hyper focusing on a painting, listening to various DJ sets and mixes, and music of all genres or creating my own, grabbing dinner and a drink with a friend, designing my dream wardrobe shopping, or researching, studying, and reading.

I can’t wait to connect with you further. Thank you for delving into my world with this intro, and I hope to see you at Carnelian soon.