We were lucky to catch up with Camille Kerner recently and have shared our conversation below.
Camille, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
A huge risk I have recently taken was moving to Chicago, IL from Western NC with no job or housing lined up for myself in August of 2024. I had an opportunity to spend two weeks in a program called Interplay; Art & Social Change in Chicago wherein a cohort of sixteen eighteen to forty year olds spent eight hours together everyday with four amazing facilitators . We sang, danced, jibber jabbered, and witnessed one another in simple and complicated ways. We spoke to our inner children and allowed all parts of ourselves to emerge and be without shame or judgement. A close friend and mentor had introduced me to the practice of Interplay in the year previous, and they had a plethora of connections in Chicago which gave me confidence to chose this windy city as my next home. In those two weeks I found housing for myself with a lovely queer human, and started exploring the city ~ keeping my eyes out for interesting people and projects to engage with. This risk has led to a lot of upheaval of emotions ~ especially because of the Hurricane Helene that hit my most recent nest (Western NC) out of nowhere! Starting over in a new place, being in my young twenties, and then my “home” and community I just left being hit with a catastrophic storm is honestly just BAZAAR. But nonetheless, between crying to my parents on the phone after rough, lonely nights in a city I’m just becoming oriented to ~ I feel expansion in my chest, my body is following it’s wisdom to be somewhere that will value my work more than a small mountain town in the South. I know this risk was worth taking, and I’m ready to believe in myself ~ head on.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I recently graduated with a B.F.A in Studio Art, (departmental honors) and a minor in Spanish in Spring 2024 from Appalachian State University. In September, 2023 I had my first solo exhibition titled “Big Works” at Nth degree gallery in Boone, NC where I was a member from 2022-2024. Most of my work is a combination of large, untraditional paintings and drawings on found materials. I also work in digital photography, mural painting, ceramics, and really anything I can get my hands on, (when it comes down to it). A big project I recently completed is a self-published a book titled “Beyond the Red Door ; Wisdom & Photos of High Country Queers,” which you can read more about on my website.
Conceptually, my work tells a story through intimate grappling between my body and the material; holding layers energetically and building a history of mark making. The creatures I paint give me a feeling of protection and guidance, they bridge the space between my identity and spirituality. Using awkward compositions the viewer is confronted with a new perspective. I find excitement in exploring and expanding artistic techniques, and not being restricted to a single medium. Common themes of queerness, the human form, as well as alternate otherworldly landscapes emerge in my work. To counter the long history of ignorance and oblivion to the values and reality of queers, my desire is to create more representation; spaces to commune, relate, and celebrate the complicated experience of existing outside the traditional norms of our constructed society.
Informed by authors and artists such as Bell Hooks, Audre Lorde, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Sara Ahmed, Leonara Carrington, Nan Goldin, Nicole Eisenman, and Frida Kahlo mixed with the intersections of my own identity, queer perspectives, and connection to the natural world ~ rivers and trees have become the catalyst of my work.
Growing up in Durham, North Carolina the Eno river was practically in my backyard. Though not the most glamorous nature spot in the world, these woods gave me more than what I needed throughout my childhood. I dedicated myself to that river so deeply to learn as much as I could and the river became my mother. I was fascinated to be naked on her rocks and bathe in her snow. Touch and sing to the trees and talk to the owls. I can see my spot when I close my eyes – the one spot we called “Sterling…” her water glimmers there, surrounding my heart space golden glows of sunsets after warm thunderstorms of a hot and humid North Carolina summer. In the summertime I would spend all my time in her water. I believe knowing this place allowed me to understand myself as the flow of nature – the flow of access I could use to create and see what may seem otherworldly to some.
The point of my art is to imagine other worlds and begin building them by manifesting those worlds visually. Pulling on the deep parts of being human ~ the messiness, the reality of our bodies aging, cycles reflecting in nature that come up through our emotional and physical bodies.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
The art world needs more money ~ more money flowing through it from every angle. Society doesn’t value art as a human necessity when it truly is the backbone of humanity. The first thing that humans did once our species found shelter and warmth was paint on the walls of caves. Creation is innate, it is not to be hierarchical, it is not to be only accessible to the rich. I am certain that some of the most beautiful art that has ever been made is laying in a dusty closet of the most brilliant women who live in the lowest rung of society in deep crevices of the world. We’ll never see that because materialism, capitalism, and individualism has taken us away from our own humanity.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Yes!! So so many resources… a lot of them are based in somatic practices. As I mentioned earlier, Interplay is a body wisdom practice that has been a huge tool in unlocking my creativity. Being able to connect and listen to my body has allowed it to become a vessel for my paintings and visual work. Before Interplay, I was connected with communities that practiced free form dancing as well as contact improv. These practices of dance have been fundamental to my creative endeavors because they allowed me to enter a flow state. Which is the ideal state of being as a creative. The other important thing these practices have brought me is connection to community, wherein not only do I find resources through conversations and intimacy with others but I too have become a resource for folx to have deep connections with; leaning into our messiness is where inspiration derives from; finding radical truth through discovering what is hard and what is easeful about our existence. Growing up in our school system in the US I felt very quieted as a female bodied person, domesticated to take up as little space as possible, be nice and quiet. Only in my early twenties have I gathered the courage to release those ideals and grow into my full bodied gender expression; for which I can thank these body wisdom practices, engaging with those around me, and a few books of course… All About Love (Bell Hooks), Women Who Run With The Wolves, (Clarissa Pinkola Estes).
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.camillekerner.com/
- Instagram: @camille.tats
Image Credits
Evan Bates, Jo Husk