portfolio by katia acosta-mikulasek
My art is my trauma, my femininity, my beauty, and my identity. In creating my thesis, I explore the effects that my trauma had on my views on beauty and femininity. I created the scale of innocent and grotesque beauty to visualize my changed view, and I create my art based off of this scale. My goal is for my art to approach the divine and total beauty using the motifs that are present in my life and in my definition of beauty. Overwhelming femininity, grotesque depictions of organs, and complex obsessions of trinkets all appear in my work as representations of beauty.
My trinket and 3D collage sculptures and paintings are created through tedious and obsessive placing of individual objects. I collect things: pearls, wires, ceramic, ribbon, screws, bows, beads, and collage them together one piece at a time. The sculptures represent overwhelming and obsessive beauty. While crafting garments and headdresses, I focus on portraying and distorting myself. I put myself in fashion that morphs me into an object or stereotype to behold; making myself vulnerable by putting my truest forms of identity on display. My paintings portray beauty in a literal sense, depicting people, organs, shells, and meat realistically. My paintings all incorporate aspects of my 3D collage, creating an element of physicality in my 2D work. All these things combine into depicting my definition of overwhelming and divine beauty. My art shows my philosophy on beauty and my emotions to the world; it curates my unique perspective into complex and feminine pieces.
Katia Acosta-Mikulasek is eighteen years old and is a senior at Interlochen Arts Academy. She has moved eleven times in her life and currently splits her time between Poulsbo, WA and Falls Church, VA. She has won a Gold and Silver Key in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, has had her work displayed in multiple exhibitions around the state, and has completed a pre-college program at Maryland Institute of the Arts. She will be attending UCLA in the fall of 2025 where she will study visual art and film.