Katie Commodore "It's Not A Habit"

Katie Commodore is an interdisciplinary artist whose work centers on intimate, psychologically nuanced portraits of friends and chosen communities, with a sustained focus on sexuality as a fluid and evolving form of self-expression. Working across painting, printmaking, and mixed media, Commodore approaches portraiture as both a personal record and a cultural index, tracing how private expressions of identity, desire, and transformation intersect with broader visual languages of decoration, pattern, and design. She received her BFA in Illustration from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2000 and her MFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004. 

After more than a decade living and working in Brooklyn, she returned to Rhode Island, where she is currently Adjunct Faculty at RISD and Clark University. Commodore has exhibited widely throughout the United States and Europe, including England, Italy, Germany, and Greece. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at The Untitled Space, including “(Hotel) XX” at Spring/Break Art Show, “IRL: Investigating Reality,” “Secret Garden,” and the gallery’s landmark exhibition “UPRISE” (2025). 

Additional exhibitions include SCOPE Art Fair and group shows presented by Spoke Art and Juxtapoz Magazine. Her residencies include ChaNorth (Pine Plains, NY), Red Light Design (Amsterdam), and One Night Residency (London). 

Alongside her studio practice, Commodore has held roles across the arts. She is currently the Administrative Director of Crux, LCA, a cooperative of Black XR creatives and producers advancing Black storytelling and economic equity in emerging media and virtual reality. Her work has been featured in The New York Times and Dazed Digital. She is represented by The Untitled Space, where her solo exhibition “Katie Commodore: Between Friends and Lovers” was presented in 2020.

“Over the past few years, my artwork has concentrated on creating intimate portraits of my friends, often focusing on how they express their sexuality. Not whether they prefer men or women, but sexuality in the broader sense—what makes them feel sexy, how they express that physically, and how it changes over time. Our sexuality, and how we feel about it, is in constant flux, much like the way we redecorate our homes. I liken this subtle shift in self-expression to the way society reveals itself through decorative patterns. It is important to me that the work does not feel judgmental, but instead stands as portraits of real people expressing themselves as they choose.”