DAZED
How Kendalle Getty’s upbringing informed her disturbing art
‘I treat it as somewhere between an exorcism and alchemy’: the multidisciplinary artist speaks to Dazed about Hostile Home – her upcoming exhibition exploring the opulence, privilege, and secrecy of her extraordinary past
Making art – alongside all the deep reading and thinking that inform the conception of her work – is a “coping mechanism” for multidisciplinary artist, Kendalle Getty. “I experienced a lot of gaslighting as a child, it has made my relationship to reality a bit skittish,” she explains, talking over Zoom from the studio on the grounds of her Hollywood mansion. “I’m always curious where the line is between reality and perception, and what inspires me as an artist is externalising these fears. I treat it as somewhere between an exorcism and alchemy. If I can just get it out of me and out there, perhaps I can transmute this shit into gold.” This sense of reckoning with her complicated past – which reads like the plot of a modern classic American novel – is the eminent force permeating her mordant, enthralling artworks.
