Katie McCann

Artist Bio;
I am a self taught English artist based in Berkeley, California. I work mainly in
collage and mixed media creating intricate, strange and whimsical artworks that reflect
my obsession with Victorian culture and style. My award winning work has been exhibited across the USA and Europe.I have illustrated book and album covers and my artwork is part of the 60
Box Public Art Project in the City of Berkeley. I am also one of fifty
collage artists to appear in the book Collage by Women: 50 Essential
Contemporary Artists (Promopress Editions, 2019). My piece “WallFlower” was in The
de Young Open 2023 and in 2024 I had the opportunity to present my Wonderland
inspired art at the Spring Conference for the Lewis Carroll Society.

Artist Statement:
I create intricate, hand cut collages which reflect my Victorian obsession with faeries, flora and fauna. From my extensive collection of books, prints and pages that are antique, forgotten and foxed with age I cut out images, categorize them and then eventually piece them together like a complex paper jigsaw puzzle. At times they can be like tiny cabinets of curiosity reflecting the variety of the natural world and its peculiar beauty or they can become a wallpaper pattern, lush and dense, with hidden meanings and metaphors.
The focus of much of my artwork is the female and her relationship to the natural world around her. I see the woman’s mind as being intertwined with her surrounding environment of flowers and fauna. I have also explored the female in some of her many guises such as a faerie, a witch, a mermaid and a banshee. My collages are places where beauty is strange, creatures are curious and a sense of wonder prevails.