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My Shimmering Private Sideshow:
Kayte Terry’s Body in Chaos
by Leah Sandler
Poked Pinned 4, mixed media
Kayte Terry traces the boundaries
of her body with needle-pricked
fi ngers, leaving behind a delicate
whisper of blood, the imprint of a
toe and a heel in soft, worn, ma-
terial, the collected ring of scum,
soap, and fl esh collecting on the
bottom of a shower curtain.
The artist, who lives and works in
Philadelphia, says about her body
and identity informing her work,
“As a woman living with a cluster
of autoimmune diseases, I’m inter-
ested in both making the invisible
illness visible and fi nding beauty
in pain. I don’t seek masochism,
but rather want my work to be a
celebration of a beautiful body in
chaos.”
Through works ranging widely
in medium and discipline, Terry
unravels issues of illness, family,
memory, longing, and loss, her
own body a frequent subject with-
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Poked Pinned 7, mixed media
in intricately layered and collaged com-
positions, the site of a performance, or
a hidden module within a pattern.
In a series of photographs titled
Self-Portrait I, Terry stitched red thread
through her arms, embroidering and
puncturing her skin, collaging cut med-
ical illustrations with bits of vintage
fl oral wallpapers, syringes, and clear
plastic tubing into blossoming, vein-
like patterns on top of her fl esh. Ter-
ry stated, “This work is a reclamation
of my body, a posted fl ag that’s both
surrender of control and declaration of
hope.” The artist’s Poked and Pinned
series similarly documents the artist
embroidering on her own skin, howev-
er, this series is focused closely on her
fi ngertips, mimicking the frequent rit-
ual of blood sugar testing Terry carries
out in order to keep her diabetic con-
dition under control. Terry describes
this performative photographic work
as a “reckoning with an uncontrollable
form, this body that I’ve been given.”
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