Biography

Kitty Huffman (b.1981, Cluj-Napoca, Romania) is a performance, video and installation artist based in Chicago. She grew up in a Hungarian speaking home in Romania and moved to the United States in her early twenties. Her work is often site- specific, using the natural environment and wild or domestic animals in her process. Ms. Huffman's finished works are located at the intersection of performance and the moving image.

Selected Exhibitions: Fundraising gala hosted and created by artist Robert Wilson, Watermill Center, Long Island, New York, Wisconsin Triennial, Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison; Freeport Art Museum, Freeport IL; Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn; IN>TIME 13 Performance Festival, Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago; Edgewood College, Madison WI. Awards: MFA Full Merit Scholarship; Anna Louise Raymond Fellowship, Lyman S.V. Judson and Ellen Mackechnie award; Wisconsin Union Directorate award.

"To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul." Simone Weil

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work involves video, performance as well as sculptural components to construct topical installations. Most recently I have been working to develop extended self-portraits, which explore the idea of home sited in the current global culture.

Being an immigrant the notion of home is a returning thought for me. Home can be a literal site, an actual location someone is coming from, but it can also be an allegorical site, grounded in the customs and traditions, mythology and folklore one is growing up with.

Moving to United States from Transylvania (Romania) a few years ago, came with a sense of insecurity and vulnerability. In order to fix these feelings of discomfort I realized, I needed to create a home for myself by re-planting my cultural roots. All my projects are attempting to untangle these emotions, point at the discomforts and tensions and also offer some peaceful and healing moments through these narratives.