About the Artist

Artist Statement

My studio practice is driven by a need to reclaim feminine energy and the female form in art by causing the observer to rethink their perception of women, femmes, and the concept of femininity. My figurative compositions use poses often associated with vulnerability, hypersexuality, objectification, and submission. I create a narrative of self-love, strength, and power to oppose those assumptions. My abstract compositions and works with nature and animal subject matter focus on embracing the softness and femininity that I once had to unlearn. My practice is one of healing, connection, and empowerment.

I have always rebelled from the expectations heaped upon me by my gender. At times, it becomes difficult to decide which aspects of social femininity I identify with and which I perform. I am always sifting through the parts of myself, deciding which ones to keep. When I got post-traumatic stress disorder in college it took a lot of healing to fall back in love with the feminine parts of myself. Allowing myself to truly be vulnerable and trusting again felt like I was risking every bit of progress I had made. Now I use my art practice to work through this fear. My art is where I can be as femme and soft and vulnerable as I am.  

My reflection upon the nature of femininity and removing it from the patriarchy can be seen in the themes of my work. My newest series depicts women enjoying food. Many women, myself included, have a complicated relationship with food and body image. This series explores that relationship, in hopes of the viewer also questioning their feelings about food and women’s bodies.

I began adding abstracted text to my artwork a few years ago. It started as a journaling exercise and morphed into a style that catches the eye with movement. The viewer is forced to stop and pay special attention to the piece, to try to decipher it. My goal is to cause interaction, activate thought processes, and get the viewer’s neural pathways firing. My art must cause some pause, alarm, or confusion while at the same time being beautiful. 

 

About the Process

I create using various mixed media techniques, often layering to get the desired effect. I work with many different materials including ink, charcoal, acrylic, watercolor, oil paint, colored pencils, and marker pens. I often use collage to combine painting and drawing. My art focuses on the process and often leaves marks from earlier layers to show the full story of the creation. Many prints are hand-drawn and digitized, where some small adjustments may be made to optimize printing. Other prints are entirely digital in their creation. All prints are created with a high-quality inkjet printer using pigment-based inks on 285 gsm Fine Art paper.

 

Artist Bio

 

Kiara Perkins grew up with John James Audubon State Park in Kentucky as the backdrop of her childhood. This presence of nature influences her to this day, along with the presence of x-rays and CT scans from her father's medical practice. As a young woman attending the University of Southern Indiana (USI), Kiara decided to switch her major to art with the encouragement and guidance of woodworking professor Rob Millard-Mendez. Here she was trained in classical art-making under the influence of many other talented professors including Katie Waters, Nancy Raen-Mendez, Erika Navarrete, Brett Anderson, and David Huebner. She was influenced by the strong women around her and began studying human rights issues and intersectionality both independently and formally. She founded the Students for Gender Violence Awareness club at USI.