Katherine Engen’s work invites viewers to step into the liminal space between memory and matter, text and texture.
Katherine Engen crafts sculptural books from metal, paper, and relics, merging memory, myth, and material into haunting visual narratives.
Her mixed media sculptures blur the line between the sacred and the strange, binding handmade books, organic remnants, and industrial materials into visceral meditations on time, perception, and inner life. These works don't simply hold knowledge, they confront it. Each piece stands as a relic of thought, reminding us that the physical form of a book can wield as much presence as its content.
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The Collector's Reliquary, Katherine Engen, 2025, mixed media, 17 x 9 x 5 in. / 43.18 x 22.86 x 12.7 cm.
In The Collector’s Reliquary, Engen reimagines the book as shrine, reliquary, and ritual object. The weathered wooden cabinet is adorned with a deer skull, feathers, and blackened tomes, invoking both death and preservation. The piece vibrates with the energy of forgotten libraries and vanished souls, each hand-bound book housed within it a totem of remembrance. The skull, perched atop like a vigilant sentinel, transforms the reliquary into an altar, suggesting that in archiving memory, we engage in spiritual preservation.
Whispers of the Void, Katherine Engen, 2025, paper, 3 x 3 x 36 in. / 7.62 x 7.62 x 91.44 cm.
The ethereal Whispers of the Void spirals like a silent song through space. A snake-like form made entirely of blank book pages twists with quiet tension, confronting the viewer with the paradox of presence in emptiness. Though seemingly fragile, the piece radiates strength through its continuity and shape. It is a poem of paper and breath, a meditation on liminality, waiting, and what lies between utterance and oblivion.
When Thought is Hammered In, Katherine Engen, 2025, mixed media, 8 x 4.7 x 3 in. / 20.32 x 11.93 x 7.62 cm.
In When Thought is Hammered In, the act of cognition is rendered as violence. This raw sculpture, built from a metal-bound book jammed with rusted nails, is an allegory for forced ideologies and inner struggle. The juxtaposition of delicate craft and brutal utility speaks to how ideas, once internalized, can become both protective armor and prison. It’s a book that refuses to be read, it must instead be felt.
Across these three powerful works, Engen transforms the book into a visceral architecture of thought and soul. Whether displayed as relic, spiral, or weapon, each sculpture reflects the complex relationship between the mind and material form. In Engen’s world, memory is not ephemeral, it has weight, shape, and sharp edges.
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