Kaia Selene
Kaia Selene is a queer artist-activist whose work explores barriers to connectivity erected by American culture. Her diverse practice primarily focuses on transformative performance art with sculptural elements and has roots the occult, surrealist methods and movement, including Butoh.
Works blend performance elements with wearable art, sculpture and edible art and may also include audience participation, music and writing.Primarily self taught, her dedicated practice has also led to informal studies spanning 30 years. She studied herbalism with Ginger Webb of Sacred Journey School of Herbalism and her Butoh teachers include Diego Pinon and Katsura Kan.
She's shown work in over a dozen cities including San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, New Orleans and Minneapolis/St. Paul.
She danced with Butoh troupe Death Posture {Seattle, WA} and collaboratively opened the tea house SIZIZIS {Olympia, WA}, where her contributions included decorative painting and tea blending. She's also the former co-owner of the costuming and casting business Nethereal Designs {New Orleans, LA} and the all womxn made gallery gift store Whole Heart {Alma, WI}. She currently owns Aeriefae faerie food & fashion.
Born in Taos, New Mexico and currently based in Olympia, WA, she's a 2nd generation witch, the child of poet musician Cathryn McCracken and rock climber musician Richard McCracken. An interview about her work appears in Women of the Underground: Art: Cultural Innovators Speak for Themselves, by Zora Von Burden with Marina Abramovic, Orlan, Lady Pink and the Guerrilla Girls.
Artist Statment
My art channels visions and brings them to form. Complex moments and experiences come to me whole and I get to turn them into physical realities. Rooted in performance art with 3-D elements such as costuming, sculpture and food, my process often requires additional media and the visions determine what gets made.
My work explores ways to dissolve the barriers to connectivity we face in Western culture. This is done with objects I create and also through characters, interaction, games, feasting, elective audience participation and the overall synergy of elements. I strive to help unravel the conditioning which blocks us from embodied living and to encourage collective healing.
Selected Exhibitions & Performances
2026
Group performance, Sissy von Meow Meow: and Her Satchel of Secrets, Moisture Festival, Seattle WA
Group Exhibition, Sauma Saman, Thurston County Museum of Fine Arts, Olympia, WA
2025
Community Event, The Celestial Ball, Olympia Ballroom, Olympia, WA
Cake Math: Oh, Glow Up!, ISM Experimental Art & Musical Festival, Olympia, WA
Community Event, Dolls Night Out, Squaxin Park, Olympia, WA
Group Exhibition, 21st C entury Pop, Sissy von Meow Meow: and The Weirdly Wonderful Worms, Leonor R. Fuller Gallery, Olympia, WA
Cake Math: Let Us Eat Cake, DECAY, Olympia, WA
Accompaniment for Sqwyrm: Live score for The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Timberland Regional Library, Olympia, WA
2024
Group Exhibition, Sissy von Meow Meow: and The Weirdly Wonderful Worms, with Alicia Capp, Samaritan Press Gallery, Olympia, WA
Group Exhibition, Sissy von Meow Meow: and Her Forbidden Faerie Fruits, with Alicia Capp, Community Print, Olympia, WA
2023
Solo Performance, Imbolc 23, Music by Sqwyrm and Zhalih, Alva NW, Olympia, WA
Group Performance, Sissy von Meow Meow: and Her Forbidden Fairy Fruits, Burial Grounds, Olympia, WA
Group Exhibition, Cake Math: On Pluto, Thurston County Museum of Fine Arts, Olympia, WA
Community Event, Doll Day, Squaxin Park, Olympia, WA
2022
Group Exhibition, Recycled Fashions, Olympia Food Co-op, Olympia, WA
2017
Solo Exhibition, A Spirit Creature, MMFC, Menomonie, WI
2015
Solo Exhibition, Selected Paintings, Mandys, Red Wing, MN
Group Exhibition, The Harvest Season, Depot Gallery, Red Wing, MN
Group Exhibition, Salon, Flow Art Space, St. Paul, MN
2014
Group Exhibition, Annex, Red Wing, MN
2013
Group Exhibition, Paprika!, Olympia, WA
2012
Group Exhibition, Olympia Arts Perspective, Olympia, WA
2011
Group Exhibition, OFC, Olympia, WA
2010
Solo Exhibition, The Works, New Moon Cafe, Olympia WA
Group Exhibition, Cherry Street Lofts, Olympia WA
2009
Solo Performance, The Scarlet Divide, Hall of the Woods, Olympia, WA
Solo Performance, The Egg with sound by Inga Markstrom, Circadia. Portland, OR
Clay Mud Stone Blood with musician Ocean, The Lab, Olympia, WA
Two Person Exhibition Euphorium, Olympia, WA (with painter, Amanda Bolender)
Butoh with musician Soriah, Three Muses, Portland, OR
2008
Solo Performance, Ebb of Lilies; Into the White, Hall of the Woods, Olympia, WA
Solo Performance, Butoh with Azphodel, Portland, OR
Group Performance, Aer Caeov, ABC House, Olympia, WA
Group Performance, Viva! The Flowers of Dissection with Death Posture, Good Shepard Theatre, Seattle, WA
Group Performance, with Death Posture, Folk Life Festival, Seattle, WA
2007
Group Performance, Denial of the Body with Death Posture, Good Shepard Theatre, Seattle, WA
Group Performance, A Burning Silence with Death Posture, Good Shepard Theatre, Seattle, WA
Group Performance, Salt with Death Posture, Occidental Square Seattle, WA
2004
Group Exhibition, The Metro, Cabaret Re-voltaire, New Orleans, LA (With visual and sound artist B. Aubrey)
Two Person Performance, Human Marionette with B. Aubrey, Jackson Square, New Orleans, LA
2003
Solo Performance, I Need Things Too, Cabaret Re-Voltaire, New Orleans, LA
Living Gashlycrumb Tinies with Chelsea Allen, Jackson Square, New Orleans, LA
Improv dance with music by Ry Ro, Jackson Square, New Orleans, LA
Publications & Press
2024
Gilmore, Molly "Not To Miss at Spring Arts Walk" Sissy von Meow Meow, The Olympian, April 25, 2024
2023
Peabody, Monica "Our Fairy Queen Finds New Uses for Cake" The Table, Summer 2023
2014
Von Burden, Zora "Women of the Underground: Art: Cultural Innovators Speak for Themselves" p. 180-189
2004
Cover art, Willow Street Magazine, Albuquerque, NM
Film & Video
2012
Bird Girl and Beetle Queen, Beautiful Monsters, Natale Holder
2008
Whisper Girl, Visage of Contact, Xaxis Wye
2005
Selene, Selene of the Spirits
Decorative Painting
2014
Door numbers, St. James Hotel, Red Wing, MN
Window Art, Red Wing Pottery, Red Wing, MN
2009
Interior, SIZIZIS Coffee & Tea House