Katie Burgoon

Katherine Burgoon was born in Penfield, New York, in December of 1997. She has recently graduated from SUNY Oswego with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and an Art History Minor. While in college, Katie has had her work exhibited in the gallery on campus in 2018 and 2020. She also worked as a desk attendant in the gallery at Tyler Hall. Katie has always been interested in art and, more specifically, drawing. In high school, she took as many art classes as she possibly could and enjoyed drawing and painting, and during her third semester at Oswego, Katie her passion for photography. During her past two semesters of college, she has taken Darkroom Photo and Experimental Photo and has enjoyed shooting with and developing film. Katie’s favorite subject to photograph is people, and she hopes to one day become a fashion photographer and have her work published in magazines. After graduating, she will look for jobs and internships at local establishments, such as the George Eastman Museum, while building a portfolio of paintings and photographs.

My artwork is almost always about me, whether it’s a direct self-portrait, abstract self-portrait, or something that has to do with my family or a personal experience. I gravitate towards personal topics because I don’t know anything like the way I know myself. Even when the meaning of the work is specifically about me, my hope is that people will be able to relate to it and spark a conversation about what it means to them, and sometimes, I even gain a new perspective on my artwork. I often create self-portraits by drawing, painting, or photographing a subject that isn’t directly me but represents me. Doing it this way is what makes the work easy to relate to and open to interpretation. The subject of my work goes deeper than just me. Sometimes it’s about negative feelings and memories that I want to get out and leave behind, and other times, it’s something about me that I choose to embrace. Creating work with personal meanings makes it difficult for me to want to part with it. In the future, I’d like to create work that someone would want to have in their home. 

Before coming to SUNY Oswego, I was mostly interested in drawing and not at all in photography. While drawing will always be my first love, photography has really grown on me, specifically, fashion photography. My ultimate goal is to be an established, well-known fashion photographer and have my photographs in magazines.