Katia Acosta-Mikulasek

Artist Statement:

My art is my trauma, my femininity, my beauty, and my identity. In creating my thesis, I explore the effects that my trauma had on my views on beauty and femininity. I created the scale of innocent and grotesque beauty to visualize my changed view, and I create my art based on this scale. My goal is for my art to approach the divine and total beauty using the motifs that are present in my life and in my definition of beauty. Overwhelming femininity, grotesque depictions of organs, and complex obsessions with trinkets all appear in my artwork as representations of beauty.

My trinket and three-dimensional collage sculptures and paintings are created through tedious and obsessive placing. I collect items: pearls, wires, ceramic, ribbon, screws, bows, beads, and collage them together one piece at a time. The sculptures represent overwhelming and obsessive beauty. While crafting garments and headdresses, I focus on portraying and distorting myself. I put myself in a fashion that morphs me into an object or stereotype to behold, making myself vulnerable by putting my truest forms of identity on display. My paintings portray beauty in a literal sense, depicting people, organs, shells, and meat realistically. My paintings all incorporate aspects of my 3D collage, creating an element of physicality in my 2D work. All these things combine to depict my definition of overwhelming and divine beauty. My art shows my philosophy on beauty and my emotions to the world; it curates my unique perspective into complex and feminine pieces.