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Fiber Artist
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BIO
Katie O'Keefe is a Baltimore based Figurative Fiber Artist contextualizing her experience of living with chronic pain through illustrated thread. Katie grew up in the Hudson Valley, one of the Lyme epicenters of the world. Her experience with this illness has had a great impact on her creative work. When the Lyme temporarily limited her dexterity she shifted her practice to adapt; discovering the joys and sensuality of working with thread.
She received her BFA in Fiber Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, during which she also interned at Dieu Donné Papermill. Between 2020 and 2021 Katie was awarded the opportunity to study multiple small scale metal smithing techniques at the Baltimore Jewelry Center and in the Summer of 2023 she became their 1 Month Emerging Artist in Residence. During which, she focused on interconnecting the skilled crafts of Metal and Embroidery. Katie is a 2024 Baker Artist Portfolio Finalist and her work is currently on view in The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. She has work in the up coming exhibition at the Phillips Collection Tomorrow The Sun Will Rise, which showcases 48 artists based in the greater D.C./Baltimore area. Currently she is a 2026 Ruby Grant Recipient, where she is researching ways to integrate modern dance and movement into the poses of her life-sized stitched portraits
Artist Statement
Continuing in the tradition of mending with needle and thread, I stitch together layers of sheer fabric; “painting” an intimate picture of my healing journey. Each figure is formed by strategically cutting and ripping tulle fabric into shapes and layering them atop one another to blend the colors, like a painter would mix paint. Using a straight-stitch sewing machine, a pile of colorful tulle fabric and dissolvable interfacing I stitch along my hand drawn lines to build up layers of shading and line-work. Having an “Invisible Illness”, means I may look perfectly fine on the outside but I am managing various symptoms such as chronic fatigue and nerve pain. I often use the top stitched slik organza layer as a representation of how I present myself to the outside world and use the raw expresionistic nature of the sew tulle fabric to represent what is going on behind my mask. The transparency of these material offers a doorway into the marks that were made in each individual layer throughout this intricate process. The twisting threads embedded into my work mirror the *spirochetes that have etched themselves into my body. I take note of how my body has changed, is changing, and replace fear with fascination as I trace lines of nerve pain down my arm all the way to my toes. Slowly I attempt to unravel these internal sensations, contextualizing them through the repetitious process of embroidery. I reflect on the levels of vulnerability I am willing to hold in different spaces, with different people. In my work I have taken down these barriers to allow for an honest conversation around the entirety of what lies beneath the surface. In sharing the personal experiences I have had dealing with chronic illness, I hope to hold space for those that want to share their own personal experiences but hold back out of fear of being met with stigma and judgement.
*A flexible spirally twisted bacterium
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