Bea Kaufman (b. 1988, New York) is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and scholar working across performance, installation, video, and archival forms. Their work examines the body as an archive, vessel, and site of transformation, using ritual, humor, spectacle, and vulnerability to explore bodily autonomy and the unstable boundaries between the sacred and the erotic. Kaufman received an MFA in Visual Arts from Purchase College, SUNY in 2026, an MA in Art History in 2025, and a BFA in Sculpture from the University of the Arts.

ARTIST STATEMENT
My work begins with the body—especially the body as something lived in, watched, disciplined, adorned, remembered, and transformed. Through performance, video, installation, and archival forms, I bring religious imagery, art history, erotic display, humor, and autobiography into contact with one another. Rather than seeking resolution, I approach contradiction, discomfort, and the in-between as places where meaning is made.