Kayleigh Efird is a multidisciplinary artist and fashion designer with a special sensitivity towards color and performance.
Her work is no stranger to the absurd and otherworldly, as she is inspired by the lovable cast of the Muppets and baroque painting. Growing up in North Carolina, Kayleigh began her artistic pursuits as a high school student at University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She continued her studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland and received her BFA as a fibers artist and illustrator. She debuted her first gallery show in 2016 with her illustrated series Planet Mol. She debuted her textile work two years later with her collaborative fashion collection NICE TIME alongside co-creator Shelby Slayden.
Her first solo runway collection DAVID arrived in April of 2020. Her work has been published digitally and in print by Baltimore Style Magazine and BMORE Art Magazine. Her career also includes exhibitions in London, Baltimore and North Carolina. She recently undertook a six month assistantship with punk fashion designer and icon Pam Hogg.
“Saint Genevieve Still Loves You represents an ongoing project that occupied most of my 2020. The illustrated collection seeks to project fantasy and mischief into a year indoors. It is my spaghetti western; riding horses, seeing an oasis, and realizing your pool is full of sand. As a reflection on a year making art in the pandemic, Saint Genevieve Still Loves You is my testimony as a 2020 college graduate; thinking ‘what do I do now?’ and scrambling to puzzle together a resume. Saint Genevieve Still Loves You is a story for being aimless, an epic quest about being completely “un-epic”. You don’t really know where you are going, but you keep walking anyway.”
