2026 / Yale School of Art / Thesis Exhibitions
My artistic practice investigates memory, ephemeral belongings, and family narratives. Memory, which is both a refuge and an unreliable source, becomes an opportunity for me to research, recover, and dislodge. Through material processes, I examine personal biometrics, the idea of home, and national myths, as well as the effects of movement and touch. Sand, plaster, clay, and performance allow me to reside in the space of residue, trace, and evidence. Sand settles under our weight. The whorls of our fingertips imprint clay.
2025 / Yale Art / Kiki’s Artist Page
My artistic practice is informed by memory, ephemeral belongings, family narratives, and the immigrant experience in the United States. I am interested in examining personal biometrics, the idea of the home, national myths, and the cross-border dialogue. Through the use of drawing, speaking, collage, video, and mixed media installation, I engage in the contemplation of these topics while striving towards reifying them. Through material processes, I look towards release, reclamation, and proof of existence.
2024 / Yale News / Creating a ‘Feedback Loop’ — a look inside the First-Year MFA Exhibition
The First-Year MFA Exhibition, titled “Feedback Loop,” is currently on display at the School of Art. The exhibition showcases a diversity of media — photography, painting, sculpture and graphic design — as well as the different backgrounds and experiences of the artists. The School of Art student exhibitions this fall, which include the “Feedback Loop,” are unique because they have been curated, instead of student-led, for the first time.
2023 / ArtMoves Podcast / Artist and Curator Kiki Serna
In this episode, we speak with artist, curator, and champion of the immigrant experience, Kiki Serna. Listen along, as she so eloquently immerses us into her world, both with her poignant art and her thought-provoking words. Leaving other jobs, she has now taken a leap of faith to focus just on her art, and she’s had an inspiring path to this point …imagine being a wide-eyed 7-year-old seeing the grand Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for the first time, then one day showing your own artwork there! The stories of some of her experiences in this country may tug at your heart, but you will feel all the better for having heard them.
2023 / The LatinXProject, Soulcrafting Interiors / NYU
During a spring 2023 pilot curatorial residency with KC artist-run-project space Curiouser & Curiouser (CC), I was introduced to KC’s art world and was in conversation with multi-hyphenated art workers who are seeding projects in this Mississippi River Basin (MRB) city. As a Chicago-based art worker consciously seeking my contemporaries in the heartland region and beyond, the curiosities are: What projects are creating generous eco-systems that expand power and forefront the region’s potentials? What are the wants and needs of the region and who is facilitating them? How do these activities fit in the ether of global art and within the soul of contemporary American Art?
2022 / KC Studio Magazine / Kansas City Museum
The Kansas City Museum carries within its walls and on its grounds the past, present and future of our city. Falling into disrepair for a time, it has gone through years of major repairs and renovations to emerge in true splendor. Because of the One Percent for Art program, which stipulates that 1% of all publicly funded projects must include artistic projects in their budget, its renovations have come with numerous site-specific artworks from Kansas City artists. Executive Director Anna Marie Tutera welcomes input from artists throughout the design process, calling it “an incredible experience,” and this connection between the museum and the artists is evident.