Katie Shapiro
Artist Statement
Katie Shapiro has long enlisted her camera to explore subjects rooted in supernatural phenomena: energy vortices, force fields, and auras. In her body of work Moab, Shapiro explored a new material, kiln fused glass. Building on her previous use of lighting gels as overlays for photographs, with Moab it is the material echoes of glass—its transparency—as well as its physical fragility that appeals to the artist. In turning her attention to energy vortices in southeast Utah’s Upheaval Dome, Shapiro foregrounds the impact of landscape on the histories of both photography and in-person viewing on human experience in its myriad personal, historic, and cosmic dimensions.
Shapiro’s interests as an artist lie within invisible forces in the universe, earthly metaphors, energy vortices and impact craters, and her hope is to arrive at evocative, multi-layered works that speak to the complexity of perception. She pushes her photographic practice to encompass sculptural elements that create experiential works that blur the lines of what a photographic image can do and play with form and image.
Moab
Unique Kiln Fired Glassworks
Foto Forum Santa Fe Exhibition Record
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Solo Exhibition November, December, January 2025
Biography
Born in 1983, Katie Shapiro received an MFA from the University of California, Irvine and a BFA in Photography from CalArts.
Her practice is centered on the ineffable, and visualizing things that cannot be seen. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, The Armory Center, Pasadena, Christopher Grimes, Santa Monica, Joan, Los Angeles and Aperture Gallery, New York. Her work has received coverage in Artforum, the Los Angeles Times, and New York Magazine and is housed in private collections as well as in the permanent collections at the Huntington Library and the Cleveland Clinic. She’s been an artist in residence at the Banff Centre and at Bullseye Glass in Pasadena.
Shapiro lives and works in Los Angeles.
