BURNOUTS

About the Exhibition

Katie Short honors the extended life of the light bulb in BURNOUTS, an installation where the phantom voices of materials are given new form and value. Typically defined by its performance as an emitter of light, the artist also conceives of the functional bulb as an absorber and witness of experience. Short applies heat and oxidation—elements once considered dangerously fatal to the essential filament—to release the discarded bulbs from their previous utilitarian obligation as lighting elements. By exposing the worn-out bodies of bulbs to the high heat of a kiln, a once protective layer of glass collapses from a state of doing into a state of being. In this process, these burnouts discover the space and permission to define their own purpose in this world.

About the Artist

Katie Short is a Chicago-based artist who works in sculpture and alchemical processes. She empathetically and emphatically collaborates with objects to reveal their identity and the phenomena of everyday materials.

Short received her MFA in Ceramics from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA in Sculpture from the College for Creative Studies, in Detroit. She is an alum of the AICAD New York Studio Residency Program and a past recipient of the Edward L. Ryerson Fellowship at SAIC.