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Katelyn Lux Brewer
Fine Art Photography, Alternative Processes & Mixed-Media
The Stillness of Disarray
My work represents the fragility and the physicality of Tourette’s syndrome by using self-portraiture to explore its repetitive involuntary movements. While my work explores my own experience with the disorder, it also exists to combat the harmful stereotypes that has rooted from religious demonology, cruel psychiatric treatment and the idea that patients are to blame for their own disorder. I use a combination of mediums such as digital photography, cyanotypes and emulsion lifts to symbolize how Tourette’s syndrome has multiple variations of symptoms and how the exact cause for the syndrome is still unknown. The self-portraits depict physical movement that emit a tenderness and euphoric feeling, while the photographic techniques represent the complexity of the brain and visceral aspects of the body.
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Biography
While subject matter is surely important, engagement with the process of photography is equally formative of mycreative practice. My digital self-portraiture works are distorted in color and are manipulated. Both my analog anddigital photography are formed with emotional chaos and anxiety. In their final form, my photographs emit euphoria asnegative energy that has been transformed into a visual representation. My current art practice consists of printing ina darkroom and combining acrylic paint and oil pastel in a series of expressionistic skeletons. These skeletonsrepresent my fear of death as a child and the extreme anxiety-induced episodes I would experience when the topiccame to mind. My paintings are painted on recycled materials such as screen print boards and used, thrown out canvases.My decision to work in photography began in my first semester of undergrad at the University of North Carolina atChapel Hill when I took an introductory class to Darkroom.Since graduating in 2020 with a B.F.A., I have continued towork with analog photography and have recently explored painting. I am a graduate student at Radford Universityworking towards my M.F.A. with the aspiration of teaching higher education.
Education 2021-Present Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art, Radford University, Radford, VA2017-2020 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Studio Art Major, Global Cinema Minor, University of Chapel Hill, NC 2015-2017 Associate in Arts, Alamance Community College, Graham, NC
Professional Experience 2020 Double Cross LLC, Co-founders- Katelyn Lux Brewer and Haleigh Lennox Brewer
Graphic Designer 2020 Brewer Cycles, Henderson, NC • Creating and designing graphics using Photoshop for website, events and printed advertisements
• Responsible for social media design including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
• Managing content on company’s website
• Overseeing company’s online presence and maintaining relationships with customers
• Working and collaborating with business partner for design elements and meeting deadlines
Scholarships 2021 “Andrew Ross Endowed Photography Scholarship”, Radford University, Radford, VA.
Grants 2019 “BeatriceB. Pearman Fund for Undergraduate Research”, Department of Art & Art History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. Received for 2019 exhibitions, inFocus: The Art Gallery as Classroom, Re-Collection and Senior Exhibition Show. 2017 “BeatriceB. Pearman Fund for Undergraduate Research”, Department of Art & Art History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. Received for 2017 exhibition, Graphein.
Group Exhibitions 2021 Reflections: Art in the Time of COVID-19, The Artful Lawyer, Blacksburg, VA2019 inFocus: The Art Gallery as Classroom, FRANK Community Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC 2019 Senior Exhibition Show, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 2019 Re-Collection, FRANK Community Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC 2018 Monumenta, John and June Alcott Gallery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC2018 Nina Chanel Abney Block Party, Morrison Dorm, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 2017 Graphein, FRANK Community Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
Publications2019 Elise Mahon, “Photography Opens Doors to the Community with FRANK”, The Daily Tar Heel, September 29, 2019 2019 Catherine Ransom, “FRANK Community Gallery to Premier Student Photography Exhibit”, The Daily Tar Heel, March 25, 2019 2018 Rubenstein Arts Center “Mural Unveiling Party at UNC with Nina Chanel Abney”, Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University, online 2018 Social Practice Duke University “Celebrate UNC’s new mural with Nina Chanel Abney!”, Social Practice Duke University, online 2017 Joseph Keys “UNC Photography class puts ‘Graphein’ exhibition at FRANK Community Gallery”, The Daily Tar Heel, December 5, 2017
Professional Experience 2020 Double Cross LLC, Co-founders- Katelyn Lux Brewer and Haleigh Lennox Brewer
Graphic Designer 2020 Brewer Cycles, Henderson, NC • Creating and designing graphics using Photoshop for website, events and printed advertisements
• Responsible for social media design including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
• Managing content on company’s website
• Overseeing company’s online presence and maintaining relationships with customers
• Working and collaborating with business partner for design elements and meeting deadlines
Scholarships 2021 “Andrew Ross Endowed Photography Scholarship”, Radford University, Radford, VA.
Grants 2019 “BeatriceB. Pearman Fund for Undergraduate Research”, Department of Art & Art History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. Received for 2019 exhibitions, inFocus: The Art Gallery as Classroom, Re-Collection and Senior Exhibition Show. 2017 “BeatriceB. Pearman Fund for Undergraduate Research”, Department of Art & Art History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. Received for 2017 exhibition, Graphein.
Group Exhibitions 2021 Reflections: Art in the Time of COVID-19, The Artful Lawyer, Blacksburg, VA2019 inFocus: The Art Gallery as Classroom, FRANK Community Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC 2019 Senior Exhibition Show, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 2019 Re-Collection, FRANK Community Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC 2018 Monumenta, John and June Alcott Gallery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC2018 Nina Chanel Abney Block Party, Morrison Dorm, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 2017 Graphein, FRANK Community Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
Publications2019 Elise Mahon, “Photography Opens Doors to the Community with FRANK”, The Daily Tar Heel, September 29, 2019 2019 Catherine Ransom, “FRANK Community Gallery to Premier Student Photography Exhibit”, The Daily Tar Heel, March 25, 2019 2018 Rubenstein Arts Center “Mural Unveiling Party at UNC with Nina Chanel Abney”, Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University, online 2018 Social Practice Duke University “Celebrate UNC’s new mural with Nina Chanel Abney!”, Social Practice Duke University, online 2017 Joseph Keys “UNC Photography class puts ‘Graphein’ exhibition at FRANK Community Gallery”, The Daily Tar Heel, December 5, 2017
Artist Statement
My photography consists of self-portraiture in which I capture myself interconnected with emotion. In my self-portraiture, every photo represents my personality which consists of quietness and highly sensitive emotions. My photographs expel a stillness while simultaneously expelling intensity. My inspiration for self-portraiture comes from my experience with anxiety and depression along with the study of Global Cinema. The techniques of cinema and analog photography are interchangeable. My subjects along with myself, appear physically different in each photograph as if they are their own character in a film. I want the viewer to view my self-portraiture and portraits as a paused moment from a film. I use analog photography because I enjoy the hands-on aspect. Developing the film and printing the final photographs connects myself deeper within my work and results in a mysterious nostalgia that my work is constantly searching for.