Katie Stubblefield is an artist who engages directly with the fragility of human nature, particularly with man-made infrastructures, the manufacturing of power—literal and imagined—and their inevitable collapse. Her work is expansive, starting with exhaustive research into natural disasters, fault lines, global warming, and conspiracies of all kinds, pulling in deeply personal narratives along the way like a hurricane… 

 

In her most current body of work, Collateral Damage, the cathedrals of energy take center stage. Meticulous renderings of power plants are layered on the front and back of repurposed sheets of plexiglass, which become windows into a world where multiple events are happening simultaneously…We are watching two power systems rise as well as decay, with little indication of which we are observing. In these works, a question is embedded that the artist does not seek to answer. Are we, as the viewer, to respond in awe to the forces of technology and innovation, or are we being asked to quiver with the anxiety that these forces are at any moment susceptible to collapse?

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--Suzanne Walsh

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To read the complete essay by Suzanne Walsh, click here.

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To read the artist statement and view inspirations for the work, click here.