KAYA (Debo EILERS and Kerstin BRÄTSCH)
KAYA is a shape-shifting collaboration between New York-based artists and studio colleagues Kerstin Brätsch and Debo Eilers that has unfolded over the past 10 years. The name KAYA acts as an allegorical other that points to the collective nature of the artists’ practice, a stand-in for the many individuals who have come to participate in the shared creative exchange. Within this hybrid force, Brätsch and Eilers have enlisted a bear, a witch-nurse, and a graffiti artist, as well as family, friends, and art students — all part of an unbound and ever-expanding body that oscillates around the artistic process. The artists’ transgressive practice cannot be pinned down to a single form. The creators and the works themselves embrace a liminal state of being, eschewing the boundaries of painting and sculpture, author and participant. The artists tend to re-use and re-contextualize existing artworks, invoking the energy of each new setting in the works they create.
