Artist Bio
Kailey Atkinson is an interdisciplinary artist and educator from Easton, PA, working primarily in mixed media collage, photography, and social practice.
Kailey finds being an artist and having a career in the arts go hand in hand, embracing how these separate worlds inspire each other. She is currently an MFA candidate at Clark University, an art teacher at Commonwealth Charter Academy, and a board member for the Karl Stirner Arts Trail. Kailey received her Art Teacher Certification at Moravian University and BA in Studio Art with a Minor in Art History at Cedar Crest College. Atkinson’s work has been exhibited at various institutions, including the Kemerer Museum, Lafayette College, Lehigh University, The Banana Factory, Lehigh Carbon Community College, Northampton Community College, Eleven 20, Bradbury Sullivan LGBT Center, and Cedar Crest College. She has been interviewed by Lehigh Valley Arts Podcast and Canvas Rebel.
Artist Statement
Using a candy-coated, flower-ridden, bright palette and maximalist sense of composition, my artwork tells difficult stories and builds community through collage, photography, painting, sculpture, poetry, and social practice. I approach my work through a feminist lens, exploring body image, gender roles, and social issues. For roughly a decade, I worked primarily as a mixed-media collage artist, obsessively collecting and repurposing an archive of vintage imagery, drawing parallels between traditional and contemporary topics. Expanding my materials and techniques to include a social practice has allowed me to trust my compulsion to create in more experimental methodologies.
In a tumultuous political climate where art can serve as an act of resistance, my work is driven by narrative and the sharing of typically overlooked lived experiences. Visual narratives often explore the silent suffering of invisible illnesses. My social practice steps outside my own experience, casting a wider net of visual narrative through sharing others’ stories. I photograph and interview women from my community, then invite them to create blackout poetry, redacting anything they do not want to share and exposing what matters most. This work honors the space between what is spoken versus withheld, between vulnerability and confidence. Zines and sculptural forms accompany the collages, revealing intimate details in written form. Through this collaborative process, silent suffering is transformed into jubilant form, and the obsessive impulse to create is at the forefront.