My miniature figurative sculptures and glazed tile drawings present theatrical and sensual scenes of interdependence. I weave directly onto delicate porcelain structures with cotton and silk thread to create patterned costumes or coverings. The sculptures are often assembled from separate or broken ceramic limbs which are bound together by the woven components, while the tiles are embedded like precious relics into hardwood frames. I return to motifs like the hybrid body and the bedridden body: figures intertwine in gestures both erotic and assistive, knitted to each other and their furniture supports. These vignettes celebrate a support system that in my life has been both social (care providers, animals, family, friends, lovers) and designed (furniture, mobility aids, architectural features). The miniature scale is a nod to votive objects that were historically placed on altars by the devout as pleas for relief from pain, illness, or deformity; here, however, by referencing familiar moments of physical fragility and mutual support, I’m hoping to revise problematic stereotypes about the disability community and illuminate instead what makes each of us desirable, funny, and powerful. All of these intimate scenes are set as if for an eagle-eyed critic: a sickbed, a votive offering, a moment of private pleasure together insist that nothing is too sacred to be comical, or to be shared.  

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Em Kettner (b. 1988, Philadelphia, PA) is an artist and writer based in Richmond, CA. Recent solo exhibitions include Homebound at François Ghebaly Gallery (New York, NY), Sick Joke at Chapter NY (New York, NY), Slow Poke at François Ghebaly Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), The Eternal Worm at HARPY (Rutherford, NJ), and Play the Fool at Goldfinch (Chicago, IL). She’s participated in two-person and group exhibitions at Pipeline (London, UK), Outer Space (Concord, NH), the MFA (Boston, MA), Winter Street Gallery (Edgartown, MA), Candice Madey (New York, NY), and Et al. Gallery (San Francisco, CA), among others. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; the Ohana Center, Monterey, CA; the DePaul Art Museum and The Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, both Chicago, IL.

Kettner’s work has been reviewed and published in the Paris Review, Cultured Magazine, ArtForum, Art in America, Sculpture Magazine, Contemporary Art Review LA (CARLA), HyperAllergic, Institutional Model, and Sixty Inches From Center. In 2023, Fulcrum Arts produced her interactive digital storybook, “Doctor, Doctor," an illustrated journey through history, myth, and patient-hood.

Em Kettner earned her BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is represented by François Ghebaly Gallery in Los Angeles and New York.

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Selected Recent Interviews

Em Kettner in conversation with Sarah Faux for CULTURED

In conversation with Wes Hardin on her Solo Exhibition "Homebound"

In conversation with Bert Stabler for Institutional Model

Elizabeth Lalley interviews Em Kettner for her solo exhibition “Play the Fool” at Goldfinch

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