Made In L.A. is coming to the Hammer, Barnsdall Park, LAXART, and billboards around town on June 2 and will showcase sixty emerging, under-recognized Los Angeles artists–one of which will be voted to win a $100,000 prize. In order to help you make an educated vote this summer, we’re counting down to Made In L.A. by showcasing each artist participating in the biennial.

Kate Costello is obsessed with the artist’s gaze. She is an interdisciplinary artist with toes dipped in sculpture, video, photography, painting, and video, her work surrounding how you view work, how she views work, and how she wants you to see the work of an artist.

A lot of artists toy with how their art is viewed and Costello is one of them. However, she takes a few steps back from her work, really removing them (and her) from them. An example of this is a show she did at Redding Fine Art a few years ago, where she created a large lattice that bisected the exhibition space, complicating how a viewer functions in a space but also how a viewer views art (seen above). The lattice–which is art itself–framed and obscured and forced viewers to see the other work, photographs, differently. You were unable to see them straight forward as photos but through a filter the artist made for you.

Costello’s work is often self-reflexive as the piece above (entitled Cockaigne) shows. Moreover and tied to the previously mentioned show are her photography works, which dwell on the role of the model/artist’s muse. In a series of work she did for Wallspace entitled Kiki & Me, she had models and muses placed in front of hand painted patterns she created (an example of that below). The photo set almost implode against itself, the models becoming live versions of wooden figures placed before her pattern work, which envelope and highlight the model. It’s an interesting relationship, similar to a visual 808 loop on repeat.

Similarly (and also below), for last year’s Art Basel, Costello constructed a metal archway reproduction of a structure in Wallspace gallery, which brought attention to how we view space and what it means for the same thing to exist in two completely different worlds. This, again, represents a somewhat witty and self-reflexive angle of approaching art and exhibition. It’s very interesting.

We’re curious to see what Costello brings to the show as her work is so incredibly varied and, at points, very, very meta. They are like little jokes Costello plays on her audience that they sometimes get but sometimes don’t if they don’t understand the context or reference points. We imagine there will be some element of reflexiveness, us viewing her work in a way she wants us to view it that is presented in a way from a specific gaze. We’re very curious to see the vehicle she uses to share this!

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