UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology APRIL 2023 - Flipbook - Page 7
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
KATASI KULUBYA
"It's a Good Time" to reclaim space.
W
Blue in Green Copyright Katasi Kulubya
hen the pandemic hit full-stride and
Los Angeles was instructed to shelter
in place, Katasi Kulubya, like many of
us, indulged in fantasies of elaborate dinner
parties with friends, social gatherings with unmasked smiles and laughter. An avid collector
of images, Katasi began pulling from her Jet
and Ebony magazines, architectural design
magazines, Flickr, and Pinterest buckets, and “A
Good Time,” a digital collage series, was born.
she is working to integrate her Filipino side
while remaining authentic and as a way to keep
her connection with her mother alive.
Although Katasi has worked as a product
designer for the last decade-plus, her art until
“A Good Time” has been more traditional. Her
paintings explore the planes of the human
face and body, and her large-scale wooden
sculptures lean into the abstraction of said
planes. She is so adept at digital manipulation
that as she began building collages, in Sketch
and Figma rather than Photoshop, she
found that she could shift color tones and
the proportions of people in relation to the
spectacular backdrops to invite the viewer
to subconsciously place value and focus on
nuanced commentary about race, gender roles,
and what is considered normal by mainstream
media and within our unconscious biases.
Race is an aspect of Katasi’s work that is
important to unpack. She grew up in suburban
California where she was privately educated.
Her Ugandan father graduated from Howard
University College of Medicine into a 40+
year career as a Pain Management Specialist
and Anesthesiologist, while her late mother
received a degree from Bicol University College
of Nursing in Legazpi City, Philippines, and
was a Registered Operating Room Nurse for
35 years. She learned young to think about
intentions rather than focusing on racist
comments people drop both intentionally
and without thinking. She also understood
that her immigrant parents provided as much
opportunity as possible for Katasi and her two
siblings to rise above common hypocrisies and
stereotyping biracial Americans face. While
her brother is in his last year of a residency at
University California Davis for Neurosurgery,
Katasi knew from a young age that her curiosity
about the human body and anatomy would
always be artistic rather than medical.
By leaning into an analog, 60’s and 70’s Mad
Men advertising style, Katasi took a leap into
quietly reclaiming ownership of space for
Black and Brown people who have not been
traditionally allowed such whimsical and
joyous participation in mainstream purviews
of suburban quaintness or carefree decadence.
“I think it’s so cool how art bridges gaps of
comfort and care,” she tells me, “because I’ve
lived in that area of hypocrisy on both sides.”
She means being biracial but presenting as only
one race and so walking through life within that
skin. While she tends to use imagery of Black
Americans because that is how she presents,
The new collages bridge both sides of her art
training: the design side that she undertook
to give her parents security in that she may
provide herself with a comfortable life, and
the side that explores her voice as part of a
national conversation about visual expectations
she has never fit, not simply due to the color
of her skin, but also in her gender expression
and sexual orientation. “A Good Time,” as a
series, is Katasi drawing from all aspects of her
education, from anatomy courses to those on
critical theory, with the hope that all viewers
are able to find themselves within her work. To
ensure viewers feel seen, “feel cool or sexy or
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