Artist Statement

People always scoff and “eep!” at the sight of a city rat, but they have always been inspiring to me. City rats know the ins and the outs; the cracks and crevices of alleyways. They’re scrappers, collectors, and observers. While walking through a sea of suits and briefcases, passing luxury Chicago hotels I always find myself in alleyways picking up wooden panels to repurpose for my next work of art. It is through these not so elegant situations where I find my inspiration. Through my work I challenge viewers to accept a different kind of beauty by accentuating detail in bumps, wrinkles, slime, sludge, rust, cracks, globs, tears, holes, rips, and just about any texture I can throw into exaggeration. As a student I was always told not to use too much black in my work and to refrain from thick, heavy outlines. Lets just say I have always challenged the rules I have been given when it comes to art, and my work has come to embody the two things I was told to never do. I am a scrapper, a collector, and an observer. — Katie Wagner