Kayla Cantu

Kayla Cantu is an artist and educator whose work questions perceptions of identity, unruly bodies, and ideas surrounding normality and abnormality. Her work utilizes photographic, video, and sculptural processes to parallel glass properties to human capability. Kayla earned her BFA from West Texas A&M University and her MFA in Glass from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at places such as the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art, the Delaware Contemporary, the Museum of American Glass, and has been featured in publications such as New Glass Review and SuboArt Magazine. She been awarded
residences and fellowships at Pittsburgh Glass Center and WheatonArts. She resides in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she pursues her artistic practice and is faculty within
the glass program at Temple University, Tyler School of Art and Architecture.

My work considers curiosities of discomfort relating to assumed perceptions of identity,
ideas surrounding failure, and unruly bodies—bodies that society has traditionally
deemed as not “normal.” By drawing from personal experience, referencing societal
standards, and paralleling glass properties to human capability, my practice questions
senses of discomfort related to the self both psychologically and physically. Bulging fat,
fleshy folds, timelines of bodies, notions of failure, and the psychological need to
contain one’s own perception are some of the curiosities I explore within my practice. I
ask others to reflect what they see back onto themselves by considering material
choices, what they recognize before them, and how they perceive physicality. Through
subject matter, material, and installation, my work explores what it’s like to walk the fine line of being human, put vulnerabilities out there for others to see, and accept the
unruliness we all exist with.

kaylancantu.com 

instagram.com/kaylacantu66