Kayla E.

Tintype by Sara Mulvey
Kayla E. is a Texas-born artist and designer of Mexican-American descent. Her comics practice centers around her childhood and functions as a map-making exercise. Leaning heavily on the fixed compositional structure and aesthetic codes of post-war American comics, she imposes order onto recollections once disorganized by intrafamilial abuse, addiction, and sexual violence. Her textile work and painting practice are concerned with memories that present as unmappable. She works as creative director at Fantagraphics and is the co-founder and president of Nat. Brut Inc., a non-profit that produces the art and literary magazine Nat. Brut. She earned her B.A. from Harvard University, where she was awarded the Albert Alcalay Prize in Visual Arts and served as the art director for the Harvard Lampoon. As a public speaker, E. has been invited to expand on her practice at universities and creative conferences across the country. For the past few years, she has worked out of her downtown attic studio in rural North Carolina, where she lives with her wife, Laura Bullard. Kayla is a recipient of a Princeton Hodder Fellowship for the 2023-2024 academic year. Precious Rubbish, her experimental graphic memoir, will be published by Fantagraphics in 2025.
Education
2013
Harvard University, BA in Visual and Environmental Studies
Fellowships
2023-24
Mary Mackall Gwinn Hodder Fellow, Princeton University, Lewis Center for the Arts
Awards
2023
Nominated for an Ignatz Award: Outstanding Anthology (NOW #12)
2021
Simon Rockower Award in Layout and Design, American Jewish Press Association
2020
American Illustration 40 Winner
2013
Whiting Literary Magazine Prize, Nat. Brut
2018
American Illustration 37 Winner
2013
Albert Alcalay Prize in Visual Arts, Harvard University
Curatorial
2018
Juror, American Illustration 36
2014
Juror, "Hecho En Dallas," Latino Cultural Center Dallas, TX
Exhibitions
Solo
2019
"DRUNK TANK," Culture Hole, Dallas, TX
2014
"Kayla: Now and Then, Now and Again," Deep Ellum Windows, Dallas, TX
2014
"Watch Kayla," The Safe Room, Dallas, TX
Group
2020
Culture Hole TV, Episode Three: Drugs
2014
Dallas Aurora, Dallas, TX
Selected Publications
2022
"Precious Rubbish," NOW #12, Fantagraphics
2021
"Precious Rubbish," NOW #11, Fantagraphics
2020
"The Dreadfuls Special," Rotland Press
2020
"Marge's Little Lulu," The Comics Journal No. 305
2018
"Precious Rubbish," Rotland Press Single Shot
2018
"Death in Desoto, Texas," Booth Journal, Issue 12
2017
"Precious Rubbish," Resist, edited by Francoise Mouly and Nadja Spiegelman
2017
"Precious Rubbish," The Southeast Review 35.2
2017
"Kayla Sees the Lowcountry," Ecotone Magazine Issue 22
2017
"All of Them Witches," Black Eye No. 3, Rotland Press
2016
"Precious Rubbish," The Spectacle
2014
"Kayla's Day In," New Delta Review
Public Speaking
2023
Carousel (at Small Press Expo)
2023
Small Press Expo
2023
Heroes Convention
2023
Dartmouth College
2023
Swan Con, USC Sumter
2022
Cartoon Crossroads Columbus
2022
Small Press Expo
2022
Heroes Convention
2022
ICON Conference 11: The Illustration Conference
2019
University of Chicago
2017
ArtCenter College of Design
2017
Los Angeles County High School for the Arts
2016
ICON Conference 9: The Illustration Conference
2016
Oberlin College
2016
The University of Texas at Dallas
2016
Southern Methodist University
2015
Harvard University