Through stark memoir, ethereality, and ritual healing, my work reflects the complex and fragmented nature of a post-traumatic self.
As a survivor of childhood and interpersonal violence, I confront these past traumas with candor and catharsis. From pain I draw not only meaning but power.
My work pulls from a connection to the Catholic saint Maria Goretti, a young girl murdered while refusing her assailant’s sexual advances. My great-grandmother Esterina was cousins with Maria, sharing a bed with her as a child in the Italian village of Corinaldo.
Building on the complexity of this family tree, my work simultaneously holds pain and darkness with magic and belonging.
Kay Belardinelli is an interdisciplinary artist exploring trauma, magic, and the body.
Belardinelli’s visual work has been shown in Boston, Philadelphia, Berlin, and California, and her music has been written about in online magazines Noisey, Idioteq, and Razorcake. She completed rural residencies at Hill House in Michigan in 2017 and Mary Sky in Vermont in 2019. She lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island, with her dog Sadah and various plants.
