Steph Kudisch is a trans genderfluid artist whose work uses mutated intertidal aesthetics and personal storytelling to dwell in in-betweens. Kudisch works as a teaching artist on Ohlone land in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Focusing in screenprint, sound, and ceramics, Kudisch received their MFA as well as the Isaac M. Walter Sculpture Prize from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2018. They are a member of the San Francisco Poster Syndicate, where they create and live-print screenprinted political posters.
Kudisch is a Lead Teacher at the San Francisco Children’s Art Center, where they teach printmaking, drawing, sculpture, and painting in schools throughout San Francisco. They also teach free after-school ceramics classes to teenagers at SOMArts through the City Studio Program. Kudisch is a screenprinter at the Haight Street Art Center.
They were born with unilateral microtia and aural atresia, and are profoundly deaf in their undeveloped left ear. In recent sound sculptures they explore the complex implications and impacts of “deformity”.
Kudisch and their collaborator Kate Laster form the collective Hevra Kadisha in which they create site-specific pieces that are grounded in intensive research, across the mediums of printmaking, sculpture, performance, and sound. They were awarded a residency at In Cahoots in Petaluma, CA in 2020.
EDUCATION
MFA, San Francisco Art Institute, CA. Studio Art, 2018
BA, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR. Studio Art with a concentration in painting, 2014
studied Drawing and Sculpture at the Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland, 2012
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Pyramid Scheme, Bass & Reiner Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2023
West Oakland Lot of Performance, 801 Pine, Oakland, CA 2023
Political Graphics of the SF Poster Syndicate, Diablo Valley College Library, Pleasant Hill, CA 2023
Art of Protest, SFSU Cesar Chavez Student Union Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2023
FEELING LANGUAGE, NIAD Art Center, Richmond, CA 2022
Queers Don’t Cry: The Intersection of Vulnerability and Resilience, Clay Clubhouse, Oakland, CA 2022
invisible monument / secret memorial, Backyard Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2022
Collective Action Now!, Haight Street Art Center, San Francisco, CA 2022
Small Plates Project 2022, San Francisco Center for the Book, San Francisco, CA 2022
Monsters & Heroes: Political Graphics from the San Francisco Poster Syndicate, Skylight Gallery, San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco, CA 2021
Interconnected, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA 2021
Peace in the Streets, banner installation along International Blvd, Oakland, CA 2021
Connective Tissue, Pirate: Contemporary Art, Denver, CO 2020
In Cahoots March Exhibition (as the collective, Hevra Kadisha), the Hatchery Gallery, Petaluma, CA 2020
Women of the Resistance Posters, Alley Cat Books, San Francisco, CA 2019
Open Book Show 6, Arion Press, San Francisco, CA 2019
MFA Exhibition (as the collective, Hevra Kadisha), SFAI Fort Mason Campus, San Francisco, CA 2019
Fiction and Fables: Compositions Through Sonification, Center for New Music, San Francisco, CA 2019
Sound Garden II, The Laundry Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2019
Untitled Art Fair (as a part of the collective, Resolana), Pier 35, San Francisco, CA 2019
Open Book Show V, Root Division, San Francisco, CA 2018
MFA Exhibition, SFAI Fort Mason Campus, San Francisco, CA 2018
Open Book Show 4, SFAI Fort Mason Campus, San Francisco, CA 2018
BFA and MFA Graduate Print Show, SFAI Print Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2018
Open Book Show 3, 1890 Bryant Studios, San Francisco, CA 2018
delay/decay/evade/endure, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2018
All of This We Found Online, Osher Hall Screen, San Francisco, CA 2018
The Second Open Book Show, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2017
Future Conscious, The Laundry Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2017
The Open Book Show, Swell Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2017
Pop-Up: Artists’ Books and Zines, The Grand Newsstand, San Francisco, CA, 2016
Interpreting Sontag, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2016
Reflecting Pool, Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR, 2014
AWARDS, HONORS & GRANTS
Small Plates Program, San Francisco Center for the Book, 2021-2022
San Francisco Arts and Artists Relief Fund Grant, 2020
In Cahoots March Residency Cohort & Grant Recipient (as part of the collective, Hevra Kadisha), 2020
Isaac M. Walter Sculpture Prize, San Francisco Art Institute, 2018
PUBLICATIONS AND COLLECTIONS
mother tongue (as the collective, Hevra Kadisha), vol. 2, linke fligl, 2021
Actual Favorite Meadow Vol.1, Sun Side, Small Supply, 2021
trans haggadah 5781: a liberation seder for trans day of visibility, די ראָזעווע פּאַווע pink peacock, 2021
Cover Artist for ushpi(zine): reparations & homecoming in jewish diaspora, vol. 1, linke fligl, 2020
Political Graphics Library Collection, Cisco Home of the Brave, 2020
SFMOMA’s Open Space, “BRACE FOR IT”, Leora Fridman, 2020
Women of the Resistance Posters, David Kiehl Private Collection, 2020
Bob Cut Magazine, “Open Book Show 6: Life and Resistance in the Everyday”, Sofia Khu, 2019
Cover Artist for Interim Poetics Literary Journal, Vol 36, Issue 2, 2019
Little MagaZine Collection, The Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center, San Francisco Public Library, 2017