Originally shown at Grayduck Gallery in December of 2021 as part of my solo show ROOMS, these are just what you think they are: haunted vaginas.

All are 11” x 14”, watercolor and ink on paper, 2021

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A collaboration between poet Taisia Kitaiskaia and artist Katy Horan, Literary Witches draws a connection between witches and visionary writers: both are figures of formidable creativity, and empowerment. Through written and painted portraits, Kitaiskaia and Horan honor the magical qualities of well-known and obscure authors alike, including Virginia Woolf, Mira Bai, Toni Morrison, Emily Dickinson, Octavia E. Butler, Sandra Cisneros, and many more.

"Wondrous... haunting... vibrant. A lovely compendium of impressionistic sketches, fusing biographical facts with flights of the invocational imagination." — Brain Pickings

"Kitaiskaia’s visions are delightfully uncanny… Literary Witches: A celebration of magical women writers is a compendium of bookish saints, lavishly and bodily portrayed by Horan.” — The Times Literary Supplement

"Gorgeous illustrations accompany profiles of female writers from every genre, identity and era conceivable. As necessary a project as I can imagine in this day and age, this is art, poetry and history marshaled together in tremendous, joyful celebration."―Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties, writing for NPR’s Guide to 2017’s Great Reads

PRESS

Brain Pickings

The Times Literary Supplement

NPR’s 2017 Great Reads

The Washington Post

Bustle

Literary Hub

Poetry Foundation

Slutist

This body of work continued my interest in the folklore of the Appalachian, Ozarks and Southern regions of the U.S. Working in varied media including painting, paper mache sculpture and paper cutouts, I worked to exercise some of the stories I have read over the years that have stayed with me, almost haunting me. 

These works were shown as part of a two person exhibition with artist Teruko Nimura at ICOSA Gallery in Austin, Tx in March of 2018

Illustration for an article by Emily Sears about the film Pet Sematary and it's messages about death and grief. Published in the special Stephen King issue of the Alamo Drafthouse's magazine, Birth.Movies.Death in October 2017.

A series of illustrations about the development of Austin’s Rainey Street for Pop Up Magazine’s Winter 2009 issue.

Album cover for a recording of Poe’s Ligeia put out by Cadabra Records.

Concept illustrations for the interdisciplinary stage show, The Village of Vale. Combining music, acting, art and puppetry into a singularly magic and dark fairy tale, The Village of Vale had it's world premiere as part of Lincoln Center Education's 2017-2018 season. 

Illustrations of two classic Murder Ballads, The Dreadful Wind and Rain and The Bloody Gardener. 

A Murder Ballad is a traditional folk song that tells the tale of a murder. Many date back to the 17th Century where they were printed on broadsheets and sold throughout Europe.

With Spectre, Spinster or Widow?, I began an investigation of Victorian notions of femininity and death. These pieces interpret antiquated archetypes such as spinsters and widows, whose status in society and identity were defined by the lack of a husband. furthermore, as a counterpoint to the widow figure, I explored notions of ghosts and spectres. When paired together, these two figures represent opposing sides of death: the bereaved and the departed.