Kathryn Batsel

Void World was a solo exhibition at the Storeroom running from February to May 2024. This exhibition features creatures from Interdimensional Bake Sale as well as much larger scale work. Like Interdimensional Bake Sale, this project features works created by 3d scanning vintage ceramics, modifying them, printing them, and hand painting them.

Void World is an exploration of creatures pulled from another world and brought into our existence via the 3D printer. These artworks take familiar objects and subvert them to create something unexpected and somewhat monstrous. In doing so, they explore queer femme aesthetics - the feminine made strange, at once girly and welcoming yet taken to an extreme that becomes a campy caricature. The figures represented are frequently laborers, cherubs, or creatures in fancy dress, all working together to show glimpses into a different world. They are set apart by their extra eye and their combination of the humanoid figure with the animal, hinting at an alien quality.

Interdimensional Bake Sale is a project exploring the concepts of mass production on an individual scale. The process includes 3d scanning and altering ceramic figurines through a “digital collage” process using Tinkercad, then reprinting them using a 3d printer and hand painting details. In addition to 3d scans by the artist, some of the designs also include elements from these Thingiverse designs. This project embraces the imperfection of the 3d printer, and parts that come out imperfect or broken are often recycled into new creations. The Interdimensional Bake Sale concept centers around pulling these otherworldly cats from the void and bringing them into being through 3d printing. For more photos or information on craft markets where these products are available for sale, please check out @interdimensionalbakesale on Instagram. For information on wholesale prices of Interdimensional Bake Sale creations, contact me here.

Monster Ball was a collaborative Untitled Event at the Denver Art Museum in April 2021. The works featured embroidery and soft sculpture masks built off of expired bike helmets. The central theme was re-emerging as the monstrous selves we’ve become after extended isolation in response to COVID-19.

These works are drawn from photographs of events taking place at DIY spaces in Athens, Georgia, Kansas City, Missouri, and Denver, Colorado. 

All of these spaces are impermanent - many have been shut down already and others have set end dates due primarily either to redevelopment or the reactionary response to the Oakland fire, where the city has shut down spaces with little notice rather than working with residents to get them up to code. These are my attempts to make something permanent about impermanent spaces.

Many of these pieces have appeared at a show entitled "Catharsis," exhibited at Europa Coffeehouse, and "Things to Hold," exhibited at Metropolis Coffee.

Each piece is drawn based on a photograph, and titled with the date the photo was taken.

This is a companion piece to "DIY Spaces" and reflects in many ways how houses become liminal spaces. All of the houses depicted here have names, and often host public events. These pictures show houses as areas for creation and healing. Many of the activities in the pictures - getting tattoos and haircuts, for instance - show activities that are typically monetized being performed outside of a capitalist framework.

The overall focus of this series of embroidery as well as the works that go with it is working through feelings and processing, specifically through action (as depicted in the works) and through creation (the actual act of making the work.) 

Each piece is drawn based on a photograph, and titled with the date the photo was taken.

This exhibition was completed as part of PlatteForum’s Artist in Residency program. “Another World is Possible: Be The Monster and Codeswitch” features Katy Batsel and poet JP Allen. This exhibit featured interactive puppetry elements by Katy Batsel, including MAMA, a large monster whose hands and mouth can be operated by a seated person. As part of the PlatteForum residency, Katy worked with the high school aged ArtLab interns to create wearable puppets that participated in a parade on the opening.

The 2019 Denver May Day parade was a collaboration between Katy Batsel, several Denver artists, (including Nicole Banowetz, Hannah Bean, and Melissa Piazza) and Denver political groups including the Denver Communists and Front Range and Front Range WILD.

This parade also featured a partnership with 40 West Arts District, who provided warehouse studio space for several weeks. In exchange, the May Day Denver group organized a practice parade for 40 West Arts District’s First Fridays.

Quarantina is a puppetry project created to satirize social media tropes, particularly those of instagram influencers. The project consists of a puppet and her instagram account, @quarantinabb, which uses multimedia tools to create an interactive character. Included here are some sample images/captions. For the full experience, please peruse her instagram page. Quarantina was featured at the group exhibition R U OK? at the GOCA UCCS in summer 2021.

Text for this sweater is from the announcement for the end of Sarah Records, readable in full here. Charts and pattern for this sweater are entirely original and designed to mimic the look and feel of inserts sent along with Sarah Records singles. 

Knit takeoff of Jenny Holzer's Abuse of Power t-shirt, 2016. Chart patterns adapted from mitten pattern by Drunk Girl Designs.

2012. Text by Dorothy Parker. 

2016

2016

The embroidery that this dress is centered on originally comes from the same series as "Houses" and "Diy Space," and it features an image from my friends' wedding. I made it based on conversations we had after the wedding specifically concerning queer love and marriage, and how we had all begun to see futures for ourselves that we didn't think possible when we were younger.  This work, made in December, 2016, based on a photograph from August, 2016, is about finding the strength to fight for those bright futures.

While many of the original pieces in these series discussed coping with feelings of loneliness and romantic loss, this work is part of a shift towards a focus on coping with more immediate fears about where the world is going and tragedies and losses in our communities.

The text reads "you take these things & you hold them inside you" and it refers to getting strength from doing and making with your friends, and turning that strength outward.

This zine was written in the summer of 2017. It explores the idea of queer fantasy, telling fictionalized stories of actual events to explain how fantasy can be a tool for survival. 

"In Tents" was a one-day installation of embroidered work attached to a tent, creating a functional space. The outside banners focus around fighting for survival, while the inside is filled with embroidered images of cathartic experiences, two pillows which read "TAKE THESE THINGS" and "HOLD THEM INSIDE YOU," and copies of my zine, Sleepyhead. 

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