Kaitlin Santoro joins the Department of Art and Design as Assistant Teaching Professor
The Department of Art & Design celebrates a new addition to its faculty.
Posted in: Announcements
Kaitlin Santoro is an interdisciplinary artist working across photography, sculpture, glass, and printmaking to explore impermanence, loss, and memory. Her practice is guided by questions of who gets remembered, how memory changes over time, and why certain experiences are forgotten. With a personal connection to dementia in her family, she investigates the brain’s lucidity, memory triggers, and the endurance required to hold onto one’s sense of self when facing cognitive disease.
Often using fugitive materials that degrade or change over time, Santoro’s works highlight life’s fragility and mirror the process of remembering. Many of her pieces require activation by human interaction or natural elements, transforming them from static displays into performing works. Even when photography is not explicitly present, its principles of capturing both presence and absence remain central to her practice.
Her recent projects include the use of photochromic and thermochromic inks to address the neurological phenomenon of “Sundowning,” a condition affecting many people with dementia. In this work, visual changes in the materials reflect cycles of clarity and confusion that occur over the course of a day, demonstrating Santoro’s thoughtful approach to material selection as a metaphor for cognitive processes.
Santoro’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the International Center of Photography, UrbanGlass, and the Print Center of New York. Her projects have been featured in Lenscratch and the Glass Art Society Journal. She has participated in a range of artist residencies, including the Manhattan Graphics Center, Sculpture Space, DaVinci Art Alliance, Stove Works, Pilchuck Glass School, and the Fabric Workshop and Museum.
She earned her BFA from the University of Connecticut and her MFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture.
The Department of Art & Design looks forward to the expertise and innovative approaches Kaitlin Santoro will bring to our students and community.
To find out more information about Kaitlin, please visit: