Selected from nearly 600 applications and twelve exhibiting finalists, Kat Easto has been awarded the 2026 Kitto Artist Prize for Dreams of Inertion.
Kat came to art through set design, and it shows in the way she builds. Working across painting, photography, digital media and installation, she makes immersive worlds that blur the line between reality and imagination, drawing audiences into spaces that feel familiar, unsettling and surreal at the same time.
The prize
As the inaugural winner, Kat receives up to £1,000 of Kitto equipment hire and a full day of technical consultation with the KitMapper team, supporting the development and production of her future work.
That is the point of the prize. Equipment is the thing that quietly decides what an emerging artist can and cannot attempt, and a year of access to it is worth more at this stage than a cheque.
At ANNEX
The group exhibition ran at ANNEX, The Koppel Project's gallery at Elephant and Castle, from 3 to 6 September, with a one-night programme of artists' moving image alongside it on 4 September.
The Kitto Artist Prize is run in partnership with The Koppel Project, as part of their tenth anniversary year.
Huge congratulations to Kat, and to every one of our finalist artists.
Photography by Syed Murshed.