Intern extraordinaire Kayla Lancing interviews Kaitlyn Steffke to learn more about the artist’s creative practice and work featured in this year’s Young Contemporaries 2025 exhibition.
In any art museum or gallery one might enter, it is a commonly known rule that works are meant to be looked at rather than touched. However, the work REVEAL in this year’s Young Contemporaries challenged this idea, encouraging the viewer to brush water across the face of the canvas to reveal various images from their foggy state. Created by Kaitlyn Steffke, a junior Studio Art major, this multimedia interactive piece emphasizes innovation in art while exploring ideas of memory and engages the audience in a way that has been described by viewers as “never been seen before”. Join me in conversation with Kaitlyn as we explore her creative process and what it means to her to be an artist.
Kayla Lancing (KL): Tell me a little bit about yourself as an artist. What inspires you to create?
Kaitlyn Steffke (KS): I’ve been an artist since childhood. It’s always been my greatest passion. When I first started creating, my work was primarily for other people, and I would usually just do gifts. In recent years, I’ve developed a strong desire to keep art for myself or my art for myself.
I find it difficult to price my work, and I often undersell myself. My creative motivation is like entirely intrinsic versus extrinsic, so I basically create purely for my own enjoyment with no aspirations for, like, fame or external validation. I don’t seek or value critiques that much. Like if I’m satisfied with my work, that’s all that really matters to me, and I believe there’s no such thing as bad art but that everyone has their own art style and taste.
My inspiration comes from within and from my own life experiences. When working on a new project, I actively avoid external influences, references, or suggestions. While I’m generally flexible and free-spirited as a person, my creative process is deeply personal. I do not want anyone’s help or creative ideas. I don’t want anyone to have influence over my artistic vision. I rarely collaborate, and I consume very little media as I believe everything one watches or engages with has the potential to influence your creative output. I use social media only as a platform to share my work, not to engage with others’ content. I have no idols and very little interest in what has already been done. When my process does involve loose inspiration, like a piece based off cinema, for example, I make sure to watch the film after I’ve completed the piece and when creating the project, I just do what I imagine the film to consist of without actually knowing.
When it comes to my art, I’m a style over substance artist, prioritizing aesthetics and appearance over emotional impact. I’m not really big on the whole art makes you feel something train. My creative process is deeply hands on which allows me to release emotions through the act of making rather than the final result. However, certain works such as REVEAL are more emotionally driven. Studying studio art has allowed me to reconnect with my inner child and has been very instrumental in my healing process from different things. Art is what keeps me passionate about life and it offers me a unique perspective on the world around me, seeing things through a creative lens.
KL: In your artist statement for REVEAL, you explain that this piece surrounds themes of discovery and uncovering forgotten truths in family history. What made you decide that you wanted to explore these themes?
KS: With REVEAL, it’s basically memories that I forgot I had, and this was an assignment that I did for my Themes and Practices class last year. I actually ironically enough cannot remember what the prompt was, but there was a loose prompt. I think it was just to create a series of works, so multiple pieces. What drew me to make this piece was that I do have an unconventional family dynamic and a different upbringing than most people. This was really just a way for me to reconnect with my family and kind of heal from my childhood without actually like physically interacting them, if that makes sense. It was just a way for me to, like, have a boundary and my own safe space, but still a connection to my family in that sense.
KL: What was the process of creating this work like? How did you choose what to include and are there any images in particular that stood out to you?
KS: The creative process of REVEAL was very stress-relieving, and the piece came together over the course of a few days… Each individual canvas represents a theme connected to synchronicities of my childhood and my mother’s childhood. I also noticed patterns that manifest in my present life. The images have memories categorized such as memories made in the pool or bodies of water, birthdays, blowing out the cake candles, me being held, and family gatherings of everyone posed on the couch. It’s also interesting because I noticed the couch I currently have in my apartment right now, which I really like, and I was super drawn to, was almost identical to one that I had in my living room growing up that I didn’t really remember.
These [images] were all my own. These were not found images, but family images and there were tons that I was sorting through… My favorite image is the one center in the exhibition, just my mom, solo on a canvas. That’s my favorite because I see myself the most in her. That was when she was in college and with that image, it was actually cut and there was someone else in the picture and I don’t know who it was.
KL: Does the title REVEAL hold any significance? How did you decide on this title?
KS: I’m usually pretty good about naming my pieces. With this one, I forgot, so last minute, my first instinct was REVEAL. After naming it that, I kind of backtracked and almost wanted to name it Memories I Forgot I Had until a Halsey employee was talking to me about my upcoming exhibition. The way they said the title aloud resonated with me, and I appreciated the subtle excitement it carried, so I decided to keep the name.
KL: Did you face any particular challenges or setbacks in creating your work that you hadn’t anticipated?
KS: During the creation of this piece, I actually suffered a severe hand injury and lacerated my finger, hitting a nerve one day when cooking. This was a terrifying experience, and I only recently this year regained full range of motion in my hand. This injury happened before the due date of the assignment, and I did have to get an extension, so it took me a few days to create the piece, but there was a long period where I couldn’t work on it, and I did end up finishing it before my hand fully healed. I could’ve waited longer but I really wanted to get it done and I remember just kind of like working on the piece with a limp hand, and I’m glad I did. But yeah, this incident really did reinforce my appreciation for being able-bodied as my hands are essential to everything I create. I realized that without the strength of my hand, I can’t hold a camera, I can’t paint, I can’t sculpt. It just really made me more grateful everything that I do.
KL: Finally, what do you hope your audiences take away from your work?
KS: I want my audience to engage with my work based on their own interpretations rather than focusing on my intent. I’ve always said with my art, “Take what resonates with you and leave the rest.” I just want to encourage people to go out there and create things. It took a while for me to even call myself an artist. I always just viewed myself as someone who makes art. There’s no such thing as bad art, everyone has their own style. I want to break the pretentious stereotype that artists have. I want to break the starving artist stereotype. I believe that art creates a community for people and want people to understand when walking into galleries and these spaces that anyone is welcome, and it shouldn’t be something based off your class or how fancy you’re dressed. I want people to feel comfortable and know that they belong in these spaces.
More of Steffke and her work can be found on social media at @katiesteffke and @katiesteffkearchive