Katy Horan
Katy Horan discusses straddling fine art and illustration, exploring female archetypes, and the darker places of folklore.
Katy Horan (b. 1980, Houston, Texas) is an illustrator and interdisciplinary artist living and working in Austin, Texas. Her paintings, drawings, sculptures, and video work investigate female archetypes and experiences. Pulling from a spectrum of influences, including folklore, history, film, and her own life, she creates ambiguous narratives that exist in the space between beauty and darkness, familiarity and strangeness. As an illustrator, she is committed to projects that celebrate and uncover forgotten or overlooked female histories and stories.
Mepaintsme: Thanks for speaking with me Katy. I like to get to know the artists I speak with by learning a bit about their background and the path that led them to being a professional artist. Was art always your passion or did you have other interests?
KH: I always loved drawing, and was always in art classes outside of school so it has always been a huge part of my life. I was a big theater kid in high school, though, and that gave visual art some competition for a while. I even applied to theater programs for college. At that point, I loved drawing costumes, and couldn’t decide if I wanted to study acting or costume design. At my audition for USC, I also presented my portfolio of costume drawings. They asked me on the spot which I would rather do, and costume design came out of my mouth, so I got in for that. It was a very sliding doors moment. During my first year, however, I decided I was more interested in drawing the costumes than actually making them, so I transferred to the art department. That’s when I really returned to visual art. It turned out that LA was not a great place for 19 year old me to make good choices (long long story), so after 3 semesters at USC, I transferred to the Rhode Island School of Design, and it was there that I fully immersed myself in art making.
MPM: I think you’re the first artist I’ve spoken with whose practice straddles both fine art and Illustration. The distinction between the two fields has closed dramatically over the years. How do you define yourself?
KH: I don’t really know how I define myself, I guess it depends on who I’m talking to and what I’m working on at the moment. I used to worry that doing both made me seem inconsistent to both galleries and editors, but now I see all of it as just my work. It’s all comes from the same bizarro part of my brain, so more recently I just say that I’m an artist.
My experience wrangling the two disciplines has not been easy. The publishing industry and the Art world do not interact in any major ways I know of, so professionally it can take time to build up working relationships and connections in both, but I do feeI a shift in attitudes. I love seeing the rise of figurative, narrative, illustration-y work in the gallery world. I hope the gap between the disciplines continues to shrink because I know so many studio artists who would LOVE to illustrate a book, and many illustrators who would LOVE to exhibit their personal work.
MPM: Did you study Illustration in school?
KH: I did. I got my BFA in Illustration in 2003, but I spent a lot of time dabbling in animation at school as well and I really miss it!
MPM: The narrative elements in your work often explore darker themes, inspired perhaps by literature or folklore, like The Brothers Grimm. I know stories like Hansel & Gretel and Rumpelstiltskin had a huge influence on me as a child, is it safe to assume they had a similar effect on you?
KH: Absolutely! Shelley Duvall’s Fairy Tale theater was a huge influence on me. I was obsessed and my favorite was The Twelve Dancing Princesses. As I’ve gotten older, my interests have shifted more towards the darker places of folklore, but I will always love fairy tales proper! Some faves are Donkey Skin, Bluebeard and any of those bleak-as-hell Hans Christian Anderson stories, like The Red Shoes. I also, of course, love The Brother’s Grimm. I will always be in love with their bloody, darker version of Cinderella.
The other huge influence on me as a child was (and still is) The Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark trilogy. That collection is so special because Alvin Schwartz, the writer, was a folklorist who collected those stories from all over. As an adult, I was able to use the bibliography to seek out even more strange and scary folk tales.
MPM: Your work explores many different female archetypes of the late nineteenth century or early 20th century, yet the characters' experiences seem very relevant to the contemporary female experience. Is this accurate?
KH: I think so. The archetypes I’ve worked with often illuminate patriarchal oppression and violence of the past. The notion of “the hysterical woman” reminds us how society refused medical agency and bodily autonomy to women, and how certain misogynistic “diagnoses” were used to remove women who did not obey by the strict social norms of the day from society. We are obviously still fighting for our bodily autonomy and to be properly listened to by the medical establishment today. The archetypes of the Widow, The Virgin, The Wife, and The Mother remind us that a women have always been defined by their relationship to other people, men in particular. We are beginning to live in our own context now, but there are still many women world wide who are not allowed to do that. Sometimes it all feels very big and complicated, so working with these archetypes helps me focus on and examine specific aspects of women’s experience under patriarchal rule.
The Witch is my favorite archetype, because, while historically, many innocent people were killed for alleged witchcraft, the idea of the witch is one of power, and complete agency. She exists only in her own context, with her own moral compass and personal intentions. Her power comes from within, and she is free to govern it however she wants. She embodies all the things men fear about women, and I love her for that.
MPM: Your output is comprised of many different forms such as comics, book illustration, painting, sculpture, even video. Has your range of disciplines been dictated by the commercial aspect of your work or would you still have a passion to experiment regardless?
KH: Experimentation only happens in my personal studio practice, and only when I have enough time to settle into a flow, so not nearly as much as I like. I would say that my commercial work is where I don’t really get to experiment much, although in that space, my projects can vary quite a bit, so there is still a lot of discovery going on.
I do look forward to hopefully having some extended time in the studio later this year, so I can reconnect with that side of my creativity. It’s been a while!
MPM: What is a typical day for you in the studio?
KH: This question can be so hard to answer because life can be so hectic, but when my daughter is in school and if I am not in a deadline chokehold, I can find a routine. I love to read a little before I work, so once my daughter is off to school, I might sit and read some. Then I go out to the studio (it’s in my converted one car garage), and start messing with whatever it is I’m working on. I am basically in and out of the studio until I pick up my daughter around 5. I try to fit in exercise and errands into that time too. Sometimes I’ll go back out and work more in the evening or some at night. A day like that, however, is more the exception than the rule. Life gets very chaotic and I am much better at accepting that now than I used to be.
MPM: Do you like to listen to music or listen to podcasts while you work?
KH: I used to listen to many podcasts and audiobooks, but it’s just music these days. Lately, my brain feels too full to pay attention to someone talking. I listen to lots of film scores, but I love all kinds of music. Recently, I’ve been listening to a lot of uptempo music. I have a huge playlist with everything from OutKast to Hall and Oates, and I am usually listening to that on shuffle. I really love to dance and have just needed more of that these days.
But when I am deep into a project and have hours and hours of work ahead of me I play movies or tv shows. Its all stuff I’ve seen before. For example, to get through a huge work crunch last year, I rewatched all seasons of Atlanta. It was awesome.
MPM: Do you have any projects that you’re currently working on or on the horizon you’d like to share?
KH: Yes! I am wrapping up work on a book I wrote and illustrated about Murder Ballads: a folk music tradition wherein a song tells the tale of a murder, true or fictional. That is coming out April of 2025!