BIO
Katie Adkins is a photographer living in Little Rock, Arkansas. Originally a native of Atlanta, GA, she graduated from the Savannah College of Art & Design and soon after moved to western South Dakota. After spending more than eight years in the midwest, she has now settled back in the south, closer to home. Katie has worked in the art industry for many years, as artist, photojournalist, and curator.
Adkins has worked with Magnum photographers Martin Parr and Alex Webb along with Rebecca Norris-Webb on their creative projects including Martin Parr's commissioned show for The High Museum of Art's "Picturing the South" series in 2012.
Her work has been exhibited in solo, group and juried exhibitions in galleries across the southern and midwestern United States including Local Color Studio, Fayetteville, AR; Perspective Gallery, Jonesboro, AR; Gallery 26, Little Rock, AR; Dahl Arts Center, Rapid City, SD; Washington Pavilion, Sioux Falls, SD; and Bloomington Theatre and Arts Center, Bloomington, MN. Her photograph, Curiosity, recently earned “Runner Up” for the Best in Show award in a juried exhibit.
As a photojournalist Adkins’s photos have been published in The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, The Guardian, and The Rapid City Journal. She currently works as a freelance photographer for The Associated Press.
Her work is part of public and private collections across the United States.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Adkins’s work straddles the line between documentary and fine art, from the bold, confrontational, and colorful images in her latest project, Queen, a look at what it means to be a drag queen in the deep south to her black and white photographs from her series, MIDWAY, an exploration of the carnival. Her more introspective projects include Walks with Wren where, in addition to capturing the natural environment on walks with her daughter during the Covid pandemic, she also begins to play with the concept of creating images in a new way, arranging found objects and photographing them. In her series Un/Natur/al, she curates images she has taken over the years that reflect the overlap of the natural world with man-made influences.
Regardless of subject, the common theme that persists throughout her work is the notion of layers. In some work this presents itself in a literal way, with overlapping visual planes. In others, this is purely metaphorical and it comes not only from the subjects she photographs but more subtly, herself, as an artist and the infinite layers she presents and reflects in her work. Her images create a dialogue with viewers, to not only think about the more obvious layers but to reflect on those that are hidden.
