Bio
Kristen Tordella-Williams is a contemporary carpetbagger who was raised in Massachusetts, lived and worked in Jackson, Mississippi for seven years, and is currently based in Opelika, Alabama. Her research focuses on the impact the past has on our present through labor both personal and communal. She re-interprets materials commonly found in recycling bins, hardware stores, visual archives, and nature as remnants of our labor and explores issues of social justice, identity, gender, and memory manifest in these works.
Kristen has exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently in a villa in Berlin, Germany. She has been an artist in residence at Salem Art Works, the Ateliers im Alten Schlachthof, and the TIDES Institute & Museum of Art. She recently received an Individual Artist Career Opportunity grant from SouthArts to support her travel to Berlin, Germany to participate in the 9th International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art where she co-curated an international exhibition with her longtime collaborator, Jenny Hillenbrand.
Kristen is the President of the Mid-South Sculpture Alliance and an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Auburn University. Peek inside Kristen's current studio practice by following her on Instagram.