Katy Bain
Curated by the Algorithm | 2025 | Ink and marker on canvas | 75 x 90cm
Sunshine Coast National Art Prize 2025 - Finalist
Image courtesy of the artist
Artist Statement
This work explores the tension between visibility and vulnerability. To be looked at is not the same as being known. In a world that demands performance and capture, hiding becomes a quiet act of resistance. Our sense of self is shaped not only by reflection but by feedback—likes, shares, fleeting validations. Algorithms, unseen and indifferent, curate our worth in fragments, teaching us what to reveal, what to conceal, and what to erase.
The figure inhabits a liminal zone—not fully here, not fully gone—where the self fragments and reforms in response to the gaze. Through layers of ink and marker, the image is allowed to break, blur, and mend. What remains is a psychological residue: a ghost shaped as much by absence as by form. The portrait doesn’t offer answers, only a trace of someone deciding how much of themselves to give away.