Artist Features

May Maylisa Cat

Photograph of place setting with yellow and light blue cups and bowl with colored glass chicken legs and a person's hands visible

Cat, May Maylisa. Hand-blown, two-tone cups with glass-cast chicken wings and drumstick ornaments. 2022 Individual Artist Fellow, Oregon Arts Commission.

Originally published February, 2022

May Maylisa Cat is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans new media, performance art, sculpture and installation. She grew up in Chicago and graduated from Cooper Union School of Art in New York. Her projects have received support from the Franklin Furnace Fund, Oregon Arts Commission, Open Signal (New Media Fellowship) and RACC. May has attended residencies at Chautauqua Visual Arts, Santa Fe Art Institute, Fountainhead Art, Pilchuck Glass School, Wassaic Project, Caldera Arts, and many others. She has spoken as a guest lecturer for Carnegie Mellon University School of Fine Art in Pittsburgh; Yale School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut; and Cooper Union in New York; and as a teaching artist for Caldera Arts in Sisters. Recent exhibitions include COALESCE, Stelo Arts, Portland, 2021-22; Karmic II, Jack Straw Cultural Center, Seattle, 2021; GLEAN, Oregon Center for Contemporary Art, Portland, 2020; and Karmic I, a multi-screen immersive installation at Open Signal, Portland, 2019.

Courtesy of the Oregon Arts Commission.

Artist Credit: May Maylisa Cat