Kaitlyn Roberts

Countless

Mixed-media installation

"The encounter between the artist and the viewer forms a relationship through empathy. Empathy is the ability to sense the emotions and feelings of others, as well as the ability to imagine and mirror what other people may be thinking. My creative practice surveys the complexity of mental illness and vulnerability translated through a variety of artistic mediums, while highlighting how it affects both myself as the artist and the viewer.

Autobiographic research relating to my mental illness, informs my practice-based study, and by conveying certain aspects from these experiences, I am thinking about art reception as a space for possible—and yet, forced—empathetic connection. What does an encounter with autobiographical work do for the viewer in the art experience? In turn, how can the viewer feel the same vulnerable senses as the artist, if the work was created based on someone else’s experiences?"

– Kaitlyn Roberts

About the artist

Kaitlyn Roberts

I am an interdisciplinary artist absorbed in how art-making and art-viewing can create an empathetic relationship to the vulnerability and isolation surrounding mental illness. Through the use of photography, installation, and mixed media, my practice-based study conveys certain aspects of my autobiographic experiences. By inviting viewers into my memoirs, I aim to bring mindfulness and emotion into the white cube of the gallery space.

I am from Toronto ON where I achieved my Honours BA in Visual Arts from Brock University. I have shown my work in juried shows around Canada including, Niagara Artist Centre’s Fortune Favours, the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington’s The VAC 39th Annual Juried Show, Langley Art Gallery’s Memories, and Gallery 44’s Envision. I am currently living and working in BC’s Lower Mainland, where I completed my Master of Fine Arts at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Today, I am the Fine Arts Curator for the Township of Langley, where I hope to assist in raising the arts profile throughout Langley.