Katrina Wolfe

Issue XI cover

Artist Interview: Katrina Wolfe

Alina Rios: Photography is not your main creative medium. How did the first of these portraits come about and which one was it?

Katrina Wolfe: Although I have been photographing since 2013, photography has always drifted in and out of my life. But as the costumes I continue to create became more and more elaborate, and ultimately art pieces in and of themselves, the desire to photograph them myself grew stronger and became more necessary. Also, now that I no longer work from the figure/portrait in drawing, painting, or sculpture, as I did for many years, photography now gives me another way to continue cultivating my interest in portraiture and the human form. 

The first of the portraits shown was “Pink Veins Crawling.” I created the headdress seen in the photograph by sewing thin copper wire into the edges of several large, still fresh, rhubarb leaves. These giant leaves were brought to me from a friend’s gardening job, and their shape and color greatly inspired me. I initially tried to photograph myself with them, but they lacked the structure needed to be positioned in the photograph as I wanted, so I came up with the idea of adding the wire. I also sliced and sewed the various colored rhubarb stalks into a kind of chest piece (more visible in other versions of the portrait). Once the general structure was achieved, I added the dried flowers and other leaves from my collection. After two full days of working on the piece, I realized I needed to be able to photograph it from many angles, and therefore asked my friend Yarrow to model it for me.

AR: How and where do you gather the materials for your work?

KW: I began collecting organic materials—and various recycled items—many years ago, with vague visions of visual art pieces I could construct from them. But actually the materials did not begin to be seriously utilized until I began incorporating them into my performances starting in 2014. 

The materials are collected from various places, but probably the majority of what I have saved at this point are food scraps from fruits and vegetables I personally have consumed (avocado peels, citrus peels, dried beet tops, pits and seeds from various fruits, etc.). I find other items in nature, but I only take things that are dead or have already fallen from trees (in the case of leaves, flowers, etc.). People bring me things as well. A great deal of materials came during the years when a close friend of mine was working as a gardener. The process of preparing the items to dry can be fairly time-consuming—especially in the case of the large amount of skins from all the fruits I eat—which need to be spread out carefully so as not to mold. Branches, flowers and plants I usually suspend from the ceiling or hang as bouquets on the walls. Once the smaller items are dried, I keep them in a large collection of various-sized baskets on the floor of my studio.

AR: You're also a butoh dancer. Did butoh influence these portraits in any way?

KW: Butoh has certainly influenced the portraits in the sense that the inspiration to create the headdresses and installations in which myself and the others are posed comes from my desire to perform in costumes that are directly connected to the natural world. One of the things that initially drew me to butoh was its organic quality. Watching the body of a butoh performer, I was reminded of the tangled roots of a tree, the intricate curvature of bones, the movement of animals. And while many butoh dancers will wear very human-looking clothing in their performances, I myself have always strived to adorn myself in garments which reflect this organic nature. While I also work meticulously to bring this organic quality to the costumes I make from non-organic materials, I find there is something quite magical, and even sacred, about creating wearable pieces from the elements of nature itself.  

AR: What is one thing that helps you stay inspired when the world is in such a dire state?

KW: This dire state of the world definitely does—and for as long as I can remember—often make me question what is the purpose of creating. But I do find inspiration from the fact that I continue to see that art, especially movement art, can serve to cleanse and purify the body and mind. I have experienced this very palpably both in my teaching and in my practice, and I believe that it is these glimpses of purification that have the power to impact the world for the better. Due to being a visual artist much longer than a movement artist, it is often easy for me to spend a great deal of time on the visual aspect of my art rather than on movement, performing, and teaching. But always it is clear to me that the visual aspect ultimately should serve the purpose of drawing people to my work, which ideally will focus more and more on the movement itself, and especially on the teaching, which at its core is about remembering, and reminding others that these human bodies we inhabit are simply another aspect of nature, and that all elements of nature deserve the deepest reverence.

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