Kate Burke Weaves Spirituality, Technology, And Craft Into Thought-Provoking Art
Exploring Digital Intimacy, Metaphysical Themes, And Craft With Multidisciplinary Artist Kate Burke
Kate Burke’s art explores the intersections of belief, digital culture, and craft. Through textiles and ceramics, she examines spirituality, identity, and our digital interactions, turning intangible experiences into tangible, provocative works.
With an artistic voice that is as profound as it is inventive, Kate Burke stands at the crossroads of tradition and technology, weaving themes of spirituality, digital influence, and the human condition into mesmerizing works of art. As a musician, artist, and performer based in Atlanta, Kate has cultivated a unique creative practice that bridges the tactile intimacy of textiles and ceramics with the ephemeral nature of contemporary digital culture. Her body of work is a testament to her boundless curiosity and intellectual depth, offering viewers a lens through which to explore the intersections of belief systems, identity, and the metaphysical poetry embedded in our collective experiences both on and offline.
Kate’s artistic achievements are nothing short of remarkable. Exhibited in prestigious spaces such as the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia and the Atlanta Contemporary, her work has earned her esteemed awards like the ArtFields Category Award for textiles and numerous residencies and fellowships, including her current position with The Creatives Project Residency. Her ability to infuse craft materials with philosophical inquiry elevates her art into something deeply transformative. As an artist who grapples with profound questions of control, connection, and self-acceptance, Kate Burke continues to create works that invite contemplation—challenging viewers to not just observe but to engage, question, and confront the unseen dynamics shaping our realities. It is with great excitement and admiration that WOWwART Magazine presents this interview with Kate Burke, delving into her artistic journey, her exploration of the digital and the divine, and the power of craft as a medium for storytelling in our technology-driven age.
“Kate Burke’s innovative artistry fuses deep philosophical inquiry, exquisite craftsmanship, and a profound exploration of the spiritual and digital sphere.”
How has your upbringing in Southern Baptist culture influenced your artistic themes and exploration of spirituality in your work?
Almost entirely. When I started out, I knew I wanted to make art that explored the influence of personal belief on humans’ perspectives. Having gone through a process of religious deconstruction throughout my teens and early university years, it became an important practice for me to figure out how to speak to this aspect of my story in a way that acknowledged the religious upbringing, but also connected it to something outside of that experience. Social media and the self-identification aspect of the Internet started to really take a stake in my life as I was in college and rewiring belief systems.
Can you describe how your experiences with the internet and social media have shaped your understanding of metaphysical poetry and its impact on the human experience?
To me, the Internet is inherently a spiritual experience. If we were able to remove the physical material of the computer, the phone, or the iPad from the picture, humans would be situated in the same bodily forms of personal focus and engagement that one would see in behaviors of prayer and devotion. In speaking to the physical and non-physical aspects of online engagement, I wanted to touch on this dichotomy in my work–drawing me to the very physical and intimate materials of textile, ceramic, and other craftwork. Engaging with craft materials often takes a resource that is equally commodified in the online space: time. There is a fusion of intention, attention, and effort within the practices of craft, and all of these intertwine into one another to use my time—or in the digital realm—my “bandwidth”. I find it interesting that within the Internet space, the verbiage and languages used to describe digital experiences often has a direct correlation to human experience, but whether or not we are consciously clocking that as we spend our time on these devices is a different story. Metaphysical poetry is a seventeenth century genre of poetry that aims to discuss the topics of love, religion, and morality through strange dichotomy, paradoxical imagery, and analytical thought. Within my work, I find it very amusing that craft is a very physical practice, and within that medium I am aiming to create tangible objects that discuss our digitized, perhaps “intangible” social and informational experiences that are often governed nowadays by a company called “Meta”. It all feels very circular, as if history is repeating itself and making it punny this time.
In what ways do you believe the concepts of control, sin, and self-acceptance manifest in your artistic practice and the materials you choose to work with?
The concepts of control, sin, and self-acceptance originally rooted within me due to my Southern Baptist upbringing, but now I find those same ideas running rampant throughout the “secular” digital sphere. It manifests in terms of algorithms, mis-information, and growing rates of mental health issues alongside misconceptions of reality. Who is controlling the information we see? Why do I feel like I’m not enough when I don’t receive the engagement I want? Instead of a group of religious authorities dictating the “Truth” to me, who is behind the reigns in my digital experiences? The word “sin” in some expressions can be translated to the word “without”. In the sense that the commodification of social identity has directly correlated to the rise of these capitalized social media applications, I can’t help but find parallels between my time scrolling on Instagram and the acts of feeling “without” that spurred me towards seeking out “God” in my religious past.
How do you use textiles and ceramics as mediums to convey complex philosophical discussions, and what do you hope viewers take away from these experiences?
I’m working with themes of social connection and technology in my work, and textiles and ceramics are some of the most ancient expressions of human intimacy and technology. In trying to make our digital experiences physical and tangible, these mediums of textile, ceramic, and craft at large really connect me to my humanness and act as a form of grounding in attempts to understand the effects of digital technology on humans. I hope that individuals can see that their mental landscapes manifest into reality in some way and form, and in my works I aim to exhibit these intangible experiences in a physical way, so we can reckon with them in real time.
Could you elaborate on the transition from ethereal textile works to heavier ceramic mosaics and how this shift affects the viewer’s interaction with your art?
I am playing with the eye and human expectation when I make digital screenshots into intense, heavy mosaic forms. I feel like there is inherent, charged energy when you flip the expectation of a weightless, ethereal digital idea and cement it into something incredibly solid, hard, and even abrasive. I think my long term goal is to transmute digital experiences in both ethereal textile works and heavy mosaic works. There is a lightness of being that we can feel when we engage with a beautiful digital experience, but there is an equal and opposite magnitude that exists as well. I want to engage with the full spectrum of our digital experiences in that way, and have a show coming up in January that will exhibit these ethereal textile works and heavy ceramic works in tandem.
What role do you think environment and cultural context play in shaping an individual’s emotional and spiritual disposition, especially in relation to your art and its themes?
Scientifically, I think the environment in which you conduct an experiment is equally as important as the experiment’s hypothesis and variables. The environment in which a tea bag exists determines the stagnancy or the transformation of the tea. In some ways, it can be a symbiotic relationship, in others, it can be a detriment. My environments have had a direct effect on me, and are something I have to reckon with and evaluate constantly. I find myself particularly interested in spiritual, mental, and digital environments that have an effect on our physical environments. Teasing out that mystery and recognizing their impact on my physical life is where I enjoy to make art, and experiment and see what I can articulate and bring into our third dimensional reality.
