Kat Howard

Kat Howard’s work interrogates the complicated process of healing from trauma. Through restricted forms of cotton, bound braids, transparent quilts, compressed muslin, handmade nets, tethered seed pods, and hand-twined waxed rope, her sculptures embody the burden and pressure of concealment. The writhing, abstracted bodily forms often invade the viewer’s personal space, creating a physical and emotional tension that asks the viewer to navigate around them. Material and texture are central to her practice, as are the visible marks of the hand and body embedded in the work itself.

Using abstraction, texture, and the attraction and repulsion of touch, Howard examines identity, survival, and the body as a vessel for trauma. History and myth often serve as lenses within the work, while repetition and labor become acts of endurance and release. Her pieces exist somewhere between bodily presence and distorted domestic form, carrying a palpable anxiety tethered to the desire for freedom. The thousands of hours embedded in each work echo both restraint and resistance: an attempt to take up space, to speak, and to transform pain into physical form.