Sentenced to Death

Sentenced to Death is a one night only pop-up exhibit highlighting performance art with conceptual artist Miss Art World.

Join us Friday, September 27 at 7:30 pm for brand new performance artworks critiquing the disturbing and obsessive struggle to obtain the unrealistic “perfected” physical body in mainstream beauty and pageant industry.

Performance art uses the body as the vertical/tool/medium to create artwork. Performance art pushes the audience to actively experience live unpredictable and spontaneous art unfolding before them. Miss Art World’s performances plays toy bat between glamour and disgust taken to the extremes and in this show case to death. Being both an insider and outsider of mainstream “beauty” Miss Art World, self-proclaimed title, a paradox of cultural feminine tradition and icons used to disrupt beauty norms, rules and constructions.

 

Artist Statement

Success in pageantry proved to be both my salvation as well as a burden. At twelve my sight
Began deteriorating with no cure. The rejection and prejudices I experienced in academia led me to seek out other means of validation; this came in the form of beauty pageants.
Being both an insider and outsider of mainstream “beauty”, I have witnessed the extreme lack of Diversity and the disturbing obsessive struggle to obtain the unrealistic “perfect” physical body. Miss Art World, self-proclaimed title, a paradox of cultural feminine tradition and icons used to disrupt beauty norms, rules and constructions.

 
 

Biography

Miss Art World aka Katherine Cooksey is a conceptual artist who has performed throughout the country including Art Basel Miami. Her artwork deals with the unrealistic display of the “perfected” physical form and the obsessive disturbing struggle to obtain it. Born and raised in California, Katherine completed her Bachelors of Fine Arts from California State University, Bakersfield and received her Masters of Fine Art from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.

Katherine was diagnosed with Dominant Optic Atrophy, an incurable eye disease at the age of ten and have struggled to see ever since. The rejection and prejudices experienced as a student with disabilities in academia led Katherine to pursue a career in beauty pageants and modeling. Katherine won several titles including Miss Teen Hawaiian Tropic, Miss Bakersfield, first runner up for Miss California International, Miss California Global Nations, Miss Global Nations, Miss New York World and made top 25 at the Miss World America pageant. All of these experiences inform Katherine’s practice which gives her a unique insider and outsider perceptive of mainstream “beauty”.

Professionally, Katherine was the Gallery Director at Studio Channel Islands Art Center and held a positions at Gagosian Gallery, Pratt Institute, MOKA Gallery and the Todd Madigan Gallery. Awards she has received include the Arts Star for Best Young Artist by the Ventura County Arts Council and the Business Champion Award from the Oxnard Union School District. Katherine also co-hosts the Art World Podcast. Currently, Katherine works as the Arts Coordinator for the City of Santa Clarita. Her current position consist of managing public and civic art projects which includes the Civic Art Policy that allocates 1% of eligible capital improvement project costs for civic art projects.