Katie Melechin was born in Manhattan Beach California in 1989.
The underlying principle of my work is joy. I find joy in the unexpected, the absurd, and in the familiar. The sight, sound and smells produced by my sculptures often evoke thoughts of past experiences that I hope are echoed in my audience. It is important to me that a lot of my work is interactive or kinetic, as play brings even the most wary of viewers into the work. My hope is that the absurdity and interactivity will feed off each other to create laughter or at least smiles. The question of permission to touch and play is sometimes unanswered which provides a bit of naughty excitement at the eventual interaction. Experimentation is a large part of my work as well. It is important that my finished piece surprises me as well as my audience.
I make art to make others and myself happy. My art starts with an observation, a memory that gets stuck in my head because of it's particular absurdity or hypocrisy. The ideas I take from these memories relate to being a woman in my time and place in the world. Through sculpture and installation, I take experiences that I find absurdly awful, and twist them until they are beautiful or create a joyful activity. It is not important to me that my audience perceive the original thought because my piece is supposed to coexist with, but mostly replace it. In this small way, I am able to make the world closer to how I would like it to be; at last in my own little bubble.
I make art to make others and myself happy. My art starts with an observation, a memory that gets stuck in my head because of it's particular absurdity or hypocrisy. The ideas I take from these memories relate to being a woman in my time and place in the world. Through sculpture and installation, I take experiences that I find absurdly awful, and twist them until they are beautiful or create a joyful activity. It is not important to me that my audience perceive the original thought because my piece is supposed to coexist with, but mostly replace it. In this small way, I am able to make the world closer to how I would like it to be; at last in my own little bubble.