By Kai Deline
VAST Senior Exhibition
April 10–19, 2025
McLanahan Gallery
Artist Bio
Kai Deline will receive their B.A. in visual art studies from Penn State Altoona in 2025. Deline grew up in Mount Union, Pennsylvania, and attended Mount Union Area High School. Their first solo exhibition, Monstrum, is about the mistreatment of creatures deemed strange or inhuman and their abuse for personal gain through cruel treatment. Other recent exhibitions include Local Mythos and Workout at Penn State Altoona. They have a strong preference for acrylic painting, graphite drawings, and digital artwork creation. Through the creation of grotesque and magical creatures, they explore feelings of alienation, loneliness, othering, and despair. Now living in Altoona, they strive toward an artistic career regarding design, specifically concept art and character creation. They are heavily inspired by monster movies, horror video games, and their own experiences growing up with undiagnosed autism.
Artist Statement
The art I create is a reflection of my inner world and how I experience life as an autistic adult. I discuss the feelings of social isolation, othering, fear, and mistreatment through my creation of otherworldly abominations. Acrylic painting, graphite drawing, and digital media are my preferred mediums. The unknown and the beauty behind it is something I like to explore in my work. The monsters I create are not simply fantastical animals. They reflect my experiences growing up unsure of my own place in the world and feeling like an outsider with an inability to connect with the average person.
I want to explore the vulnerability of feeling like a freak and why that treatment even comes to exist. I want my work to create meaningful dialogue around one’s immediate reaction to something distasteful. In our short lifetime, we should do what we want and abolish conformity. My current artist exhibition, Monstrum, focuses hard on the exploitation of those deemed inhuman and the existence of something unknown.
Checklist
EBRIUS, 2025
Acrylic paint and canvas
4’ x 4’
- EBRIUS INFORMATIONAL FORM, 2025
Typed print
8.5” x 11” - MONSTER MANUAL SKETCH #1, 2025
Colored pencil and paper
15” x 11”
MATER, 2025
Acrylic paint and canvas
4’ x 4’
- MATER INFORMATIONAL FORM, 2025
Typed print
8.5” x 11” - MONSTER MANUAL SKETCH #2, 2025
Colored pencil and paper
15” x 11” - INFANS, 2025
Airdry clay and acrylic paint
2” x 2”
OLEUM, 2025
Acrylic paint and canvas
4’ x 4’
- OLEUM INFORMATIONAL FORM, 2025
Typed print
8.5” x 11” - MONSTER MANUAL SKETCH #3, 2025
Colored pencil and paper
15” x 11”
SONUS, 2025
Acrylic paint and canvas
4’ x 4’
- SONUS INFORMATIONAL FORM, 2025
Typed print
8.5” x 11” - MONSTER MANUAL SKETCH #4, 2025
Colored pencil and paper
11” x 15”
SILVADEI, 2025
Acrylic paint and canvas,
4’ x 4’
- SILVADEI INFORMATIONAL FORM, 2025
Typed print
8.5” x 11” - MONSTER MANUAL SKETCH #5, 2025
Colored pencil and paper
15” x 11”
Untitled, 2025
Found object
5’ x 2’
Miracle Enhancements, 2025
Bottle and acrylic
2” x 4”
Sonus Demo Disk, 2025
Found object and paper
10” x 10”
Oil Sample Set, 2025
Found object
2” x 4”