Biography
Julia “Kito” Kirtley was born in Compton, California, USA. Kito is a Brooklyn based visual artist and stylist. In 2003, she earned a BFA in Interior Design from The Pratt Institute. She has worked as stylist: for fashion lines (House of Deron and Burberry), dance companies such as Merce Cunningham, and Paul Taylor Dance Company as Asst. to the costume designer, in stores such as H&M and Nordstrom and during events such as Brooklyn Fashion Week. She has exhibited her work and produced performance pieces throughout the New York City metropolitan area. Her past exhibition venues include: Gallery RAW, auction at Corridor Gallery, Brooklyn Fashion Week, Brooklyn Renaissance, House Dance Conference, Sullivan Room and Manhatta. “Pieces of a Dream” is Kito’s sophomore exhibition at Deepside Center in Paris, France.
Artist Statement
Influenced by my tenure working in the fashion industry, I have taken the traditional fashion show format and remixed it. Combining my love for fine art, music and street dance I produce multi-disciplinary, live art exhibition/ performance pieces that portray New York City’s Underground dance music culture in fashion show format. My pieces are collaboration. I recruit regular people, professional models, street dancers and DJs that I encounter in underground clubs and provide them with a concept, clothing, a runway and ask them to “do their own thang” in front of an audience.
During my undergraduate studies, I rediscovered my childhood passion for the art painting and began to paint abstract urban landscapes. Tired of just using canvas, and constrained financially, I began to paint on all fabric I could find; I used my old t-shirts, jeans, hoodies, socks, dish clothes and my children’s old clothes. Inspired by the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and the technique of Jackson Pollack, my landscapes fuse my physical reaction to house music that I hear and dancers that I see in clubs and the New York City that I encounter at night. My practice as painter is central to my process as a visual arts producer because it appears all throughout my exhibitions. I dress my models in clothing that I have painted, I place paintings through out the spaces I use and I feature documentary photographs of my work in my shows.
Pieces of a Dream Statement
“Pieces of a Dream” pays homage to the life and work of underground freelance artists living in cosmopolitan cities. Fusing dancers, models, photographs and paintings, “Pieces of a Dream” explores the individual and collective desires of various performance, visual, fine artists to fulfill their dreams through their artistic production. Each model will be carrying a photograph that represents a piece of my dream.
The performance will include pieces by Dance Fusion's Marjorie Smarth, Tony Sekou Williams & Caleaf Sellers, Juste Debout Sweden winners Niki Tsappos and Martha Nabwire, Paris 's Khoudia Rhoodia Toure and Christine Nypan, and Elite Force's Bobby Mileage. The show presents a combination of choreographed and freestyle segments of dance and fashion pieces that personify being an individual with one of a kind hand painted designs. The photographs featured in “Pieces of a Dream” are provided courtesy of Lafotographeuse Imagery.
On Feb 15, 2010, at 6:03 PM, julia kirtley wrote:
The performance will include pieces by Dance Fusion's Marjorie Smarth, Tony Sekou Williams & Caleaf Sellers, Juste Debout Sweden winners Niki Tsappos and Martha Nabwire, Paris 's Khoudia Rhoodia Toure and Christine Nypan, and Elite Force's Bobby Milage.
The show presents a combination of choreographed as well as freestyle segements of dance and fashion pieces that personify being an individual with one of a kind hand painted designs.
