Nostalgic, for the Present

"KT is a queer artist from the Philadelphia area who is currently based out of Los Angeles, California. They would describe their art as mixed media but will never stray far from their first love, analog photography. KT’s work focuses on queer joy, relationships, and self expression.

Queer is an odd word, isn’t it? Well, it is supposed to be; the word perfectly reflects what it means. I love it when that happens, don’t you? But people seem so afraid of this silly little word, they shudder and they hide and they throw things at all the queerness that surrounds them. Do you think it's the fact that queer starts with a Q? I like that theory, but things aren’t that simple. No, they are terrified that being queer means that you have found a way to break open the two by two box that gender and sexuality have been crammed into. 

You see, so much of the queer experience is expected to be filled with pain. Queerness in the news is splattered with fear and undercut with tragedy. Yes, as before mentioned, queerness is constantly under attack and a part of being in this community involves protecting ourselves and one another, but it is so often forgotten what this care looks like on a day to day basis. To be queer is to fight and it is to protest, but it is also to express love. It is romance, it is sex, and most importantly, it is friendship. 

Collective joy is a powerful form of resistance.

I create art that draws attention to this love and this care and this community. My practice focuses a lot on bringing my friends together in order to document what queerness means to them. Beyond just photographing queer subjects, my whole practice is centered around “queering” the image; I use alternative processes to bend/break/alter/transform my original portraits. I have quilted images together and I have made my own paper products to display my photography. My processes are meant to reflect how I am thinking about queerness; in short, everything is intentional yet nothing is traditional.Art does not belong in a box and neither do I."