ABOUT

Elektra KB grew up in a rural hospital in Colombia with an army of nurses, doctors and cooks --as a result of a cold war era Soviet-Colombian union. She is currently preoccupied with becoming a part-machine cyborg to actualize her body. And wants to engage: corporeal sickness, disability and chronic pain with utopic possibilities and alternative universes.

Her work entangles political thought, communication and actions. Often with a documentarian style, functioning within two parallel universes; in which she reveals and explores mechanisms in utopias/dystopias, juxtaposed with our world. Building spaces for learning or healing through the reinterpretation of quotidian objects and symbols, such as the: Immigration Checkpoint,Freedom School or Hospital Room.

Elektra KB has an MFA from Hunter College (2016) and a BFA from SVA Visual And Critical Studies. Her forthcoming show will be: "Nobody Promised You Tomorrow": Art 50 Years After Stonewall” at the Brooklyn Museum, NY (2019). Accolades, shows, prizes, yada yada yada.

BIO

Elektra KB, is a Colombian artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Her forthcoming show will be: "Nobody Promised You Tomorrow": Art 50 Years After Stonewall” at the Brooklyn Museum, NY (2019).
KB graduated with an MFA from Hunter College in 2016 and a BFA in Visual and Critical Studies in 2012 from The School of Visual Arts, NY. Her work has been written about in: ARTnews, Artfcity, Hyperallergic and Art Forum among other publications. Her recent shows include: ‘Radical Women Remix’ a selection of video art by Latinx women from 1960-2018, organized by the Brooklyn Museum; ‘Power is Abuse’ at SPRINGBREAK art show (2018) and‘Bodies of Water: Body as a Prison/prison as a Body’ at the SVA Flatiron gallery (2017). She was named artist to watch by British newspaper ‘The Independent’ and has been a guest speaker on visual culture, social media and ‘Queer Utopias’ at NYU (2016) and (2017). She received a DAAD fellowship award in Berlin, which she pursued at UDK with artist-mentor Hito Steyerl. She shows internationally and her recent projects have included: ‘The Accidental Pursuit of the Stateless’; a solo show at BravinLee programs (NY), Moving Image (Istanbul), UP Gallery (Berlin), Croatian Association of Artists Institute, (Zagreb) and ‘The Water Mirror’ (curatorial project) at SPRINGBREAK art show (NY). Her works have been recently acquired by the Yinchuan Museum of Contemporary Art in China, TheFondation Pour l'art Contemporain Salomonand are held in numerous international private collections.

STATEMENT

KB’s practice is interdisciplinary encompassing mainly: Video, photography, sound, performance and textile works. Her work addresses concerns such as migration and global power dynamics trough a platform of mythology; coexisting with a documentarian and conceptualist approach. Her work takes place in the middle of two worlds: the ‘Cathara Autonomous Territory’ and our world. The Theocratic Republic of Gaia is a utopian-dystopian world; a parallel universe fighting between the tensions built on a totalitarian state and the revolutionary Cathara Insurgency, situating itself close to the political sci-fi genre. Her body of work is of a performative nature concerned with the post-colonial and decolonial discourse. It is charged with critical humor and informed by the aesthetics of colonial art tropes and the ongoing armed conflict she grew up with.

KB’s site-specific installations and works on fabric deal with: the body, gender, mobility, immigration, the nature of power, authority and its antagonists. From the prison industrial complex to authority symbols –such as the immigration checkpoint—, adding protest signs as responses and visual cues of shifting power. Exploring the meanings and relationships of the concept of power and how it manifests today in society.

Her work ties utopism, political theory, art and activism through a variety of mediums.

• CV HERE
• PORTFOLIO HERE (PDF)

Contact
Email: contact@elektrakb.com

Blog: elektrakb.blogspot.com
Instagram: instagram.com/elektrakb