Katherine Streeter is a New York City based artist. Her collages are inspired by fashion, music, dream narrative, graffiti, and folklore. We asked Katherine to choose six of her works and provide the story behind each of them.

A Message on Love

This piece was commissioned by the New York Times for an essay written by a man who lost his wife to suicide. I was often getting hired to make art to accompany heart-heavy stories and complicated mental health topics. When working on such projects, I lean into poetic collage visuals to express feelings more than attempting to illustrate the words. The love this author wrote of was so dimensional, and he was grieving. I wanted to honor this with a quiet piece, and used the butterflies as a symbol of the two of them. They are overlapping, but one butterfly is a memory; faded, but not forgotten.

The First Incubator Baby

In 1888 Edith Eleanor McLean became the first baby to be placed in an incubator at State Emigrant Hospital on Ward’s Island in New York. I created this art as part of the personal project @thisday.then. For one year, I made a daily digital collage for an event that happened on that day in history.

It turned into a fun creative exercise because I never had a plan. Every morning I would do a little bit of research about “this day in history”, and choose something to make a piece about. I didn’t over-think it, or plan too much.

Self-assigned projects are a great idea. And daily commitment for a stretch of time is a great inspiration for discipline. When you make art every day, you are not going to like them all. You might only like a few of them at the end of the time period, but you will have gained important practice in your art-making process.

Friday the 13th Black Cat

This piece is part of a personal ongoing series based on auspicious days. Most of the time, my art is a balance of collage with paint and pencil work, but sometimes it is collage-heavy, like this one. I had fun with this because it was inspired by my curiosity of superstition and numbers. I have always appreciated that artists are the ones who can challenge folklore with imagery. My personal interest in the history of things aligns with the visuals associated with the unknown. This piece is being a little fun with the concept of the “bad luck” black cat. There is a person peeking out from behind the building, as if avoiding such fate, but the black cat is so fashionable....no problems here. This is a cool cat.

Love is like Cocaine

This piece was commissioned by Nautilus Magazine. The article title was “Love Is Like Cocaine : From Ecstasy to Withdrawal, the Lover Resembles an Addict.” Getting high from love made me think about having one's head above the clouds, and being lost in a daze with rose colored glasses on.

Yet, there is still trepidation and nerves; the balance of the euphoric high with the addictive dependance is ever present. I love creating concepts around big feelings and conflict. I think collage is so often a perfect way to express complexity. Things are usually made up of lots of pieces, metaphorically and literally.

Portrait of Marie Høeg

Marie Høeg (b.1866) was a Norwegian photographer and suffragist whose work challenged ideas of gender. I made this portrait as part of a series about amazing women in history. When I use an existing image of a face, I try to either honor the picture as much as possible, or I go the other direction by fragmenting it into pieces.

With non-specific face-making, I prefer the latter method. Exceptions are when it is a commissioned portrait piece where I’ve been provided with the photograph to use. This personal project allowed me to experiment in a non-commercial way using the existing photos of her I found online. Practicing and experimenting with personal projects is so important to find your style. It also allows the potential buyers and art directors to see what your collage style may add to an existing photograph without changing the essence of the subject.

Post-It Show Pieces

This is a group of four pieces created for an annual exhibit called The Post-It Show which happens at Giant Robot Gallery in Los Angeles. Invited artists have freedom to create works of any subject and medium, so long as it is on a 3”x3” post-it, and all the pieces are sold for $30USD. When the show opens to the public, there is a line of people for blocks, and hundreds of post-it pieces cover the gallery walls. I have had a lot of fun making my post-it pieces over the years, and have kept with a theme of doll head collages. The small size takes some of the pressure off of the formality of creating work for a public show. I think it allows for experimentation and risk-taking.

You can see more of Katherine’s work on her website and on her Instagram page

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In Six : Katherine Streeter