Biography

Katie Garth is a print-based artist in Philadelphia. Her interdisciplinary practice investigates tensions between the everyday lived experience and the otherworldly and sublime. Across cyanotypes, risography, video, installation, and other media, she positions tedium as a coping mechanism from the persistent chaos and seeming insignificance that pervade our contemporary experience. Garth explores the uncanniness of mundane rituals, asking how routine provokes escapism, and from what we may be escaping. By dislocating the familiar, she highlights the highly constructed nature of consciousness, and reveals the mysterious potential of the banal. Accordingly, Garth’s work frames nondescript items like chairs, sweaters, notes, and sneakers as sacred vestiges of a shared existence. Placed in charged, atmospheric settings, these objects provoke a sense of enchantment and unease. Her goal is to encourage viewers to return to daily life with a newfound interest in the strangeness of our collective circumstances. Garth received her MFA from the Tyler School of Art and a BFA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her work has appeared in the Washington Post and Print Magazine. She enjoys teaching, and pursues opportunities to write and present on topics related to contemporary print practice.