Kathie Halfin

Kathie Halfin

b.1981 Crimea, Ukraine

Kathie Halfin is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist who works in fiber media, installation, and performance art to explore themes of identity, connection to the natural world, and the need for both collective and personal healing. Drawing from her cultural experiences living in Ukraine, Israel, and New York, she integrates her traditional weaving knowledge with an ecofeminist perspective, fostering a dialogue between humans and nature. She earned her MFA with honors in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York and a B.Des in Textile Design from Shenkar College in Israel.

Halfin’s work engages with the sensory essence of plants and the role of touch and texture in reconnecting with the natural environment. She explores how plants adapt through sensing and touch, attracting attention through diverse colors and forms to ensure reproduction. Highlighting the sensuality of plants through abstract forms, Halfin enlarges subtle vegetal elements often overlooked, playing with their geometry and flexibility to express both the plants' characteristics and her own intuitive vision. Using sustainable materials like sisal, flax, and hand-spun paper, she creates woven sculptures inspired by her shamanic practice and the ancient art of weaving and basket-making. Her sculptural forms, reminiscent of plant shoots, flowers, and pods, reestablish a lost connection with plants. As Halfin hand-spins, she transforms processed paper into an organic form that symbolizes regeneration and healing.

In addition to national and international exhibitions—including shows at the Bronx Museum AIM Biennial, AIR Gallery, Scandinavia House in NY, Munich’s Halle 50 Gallery, and the Herzliya Museum in Israel—Halfin has received notable fellowships, such as the Bronx Museum of the Arts AIM Fellowship, the WWWoW Collaborative Weaving Fellowship in Germany, and the Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. Her residencies, including the SIM Residency and the Icelandic Textile Center in Iceland, have allowed her to develop a body of work that invites audiences into an intimate, intuitive understanding of nature’s interwoven cycles and the profound connection we share with it.