Past Artists-in-Residence
Karlee Bowlby
2021 ITIA Artist-in-Residence
Hometown: Folsom, California
Education: BA in English, University of California, Berkeley
MLitt in Theology and the Arts, University of St Andrews
Having completed the ITIA MLitt, Karlee continued her exploration of the intersection of theology and illustration as ITIA’s Artist-in-Residence for the 2021-22 academic year.
Both her pen and watercolour pieces and her digitally-painted graphite drawings are inspired by medieval illuminated manuscripts and illustrations of the Art Nouveau period. Her work is interested in engaging with text to tell stories visually – particularly the stories of women – and in the power of illustration to offer holistic, embodied spiritual practices.
Karlee participated in Theoartistry’s 2021 Text&Image scheme. She also helped to coordinate ITIA’s artist group Transept (including helping to run and exhibiting work in the Spring 2021 Exhibition In/break), and was an associate editor for ITIA’s online journal Transpositions.
You can see Karlee’s work on instagram.
Nora Kirkham
Fall 2020 ITIA Artist-in-Residence
Hometown: Bath, Maine (Raised in Tokyo, Sydney, and Bucharest)
Education: BA in English and History, Gordon College, Massachusetts
MA in Creative Writing, University College Cork, Ireland
MLitt in Theology and the Arts, University of St Andrews
After completing her dissertation on the role of mountains in the Christian imagination and iconography with ITIA in 2020, Nora served as Artist-in-Residence, where she continued developing a portfolio of poetry and prose inspired by the North Sea, Celtic folklore, and other elements of St Andrews’ coastal landscape, as well as poems shaped by her travels home to Tokyo and Maine.
Several of these poems are now featured in publications including Arboreal Magazine, Among Worlds, Macrina Magazine, Fathom, and Peregrine. A selection of her poems, titled “On Folding,” was displayed at Transept’s Enfolding Exhibition in 2023.
Nora is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Aberdeen where she is researching the role of religion and the environment in modern and contemporary women’s writing. She is especially interested in the themes of home, dislocation, and the body in women’s writing, as well as post-secularism in contemporary Irish women’s writing.
You can learn more about Nora’s writing and research at her website: https://norakirkham.tumblr.com/writing