Vessels | Kat Francis

STATEMENT

Vessels is a body of mixed media collages and sketchbook pieces, exploring the quiet, shared moments that shape human experience. These works are constructed as vignettes—small, intimate glimpses into everyday life—that reflect the universal way of living, caring, gathering, and simply being. 

The series was inspired by Francis living in a Cleveland apartment with her son as a baby. While rocking him to sleep, she would look out across the courtyard into a grid of illuminated windows. Within them, she witnessed fragments of other lives unfolding—a couple sharing an evening together, an elderly woman tending to her plants, figures moving through routines both ordinary and deeply personal. Though they were strangers, those moments created an unexpected sense of connection. It became clear that while our lives differ in circumstances, they often mirror one another in feeling and rhythm. 

Working primarily in graphite, Francis uses collage and layered materials to build her scenes as both memory and observation. The drawings are housed within three-dimensional paper structures—small homes that act as physical and symbolic vessels. These forms hold and protect the moments inside them, emphasizing the idea that our daily lives, however ordinary, carry meaning and weight. 

At a time marked by division—across race, class, and ideology—Vessels is an effort to return attention to what connects us. Through themes of food, caregiving, nature, play, and shared space, the work highlights the common threads of community and coexistence. These pieces invite viewers to recognize themselves in others, and to consider the beauty and significance of simply living alongside one another.