Katie Gong

Katie Gong is a California-born artist celebrated for sculptural works that coax softness from one of nature’s most unyielding materials: wood. Trained as a painter, she brings a studio rigor and a fine-art sensibility to a practice defined by steam-bent forms, lyrical lines, and a deep respect for process. Early days in her grandfather’s workshop—where experimentation was encouraged and tools felt like extensions of the hand—laid the foundation for her enduring fascination with material behavior. 

Guided by the contours of the California landscape, Gong treats heat and pressure as instruments, briefly loosening the wood's grain to capture gestures that appear impossibly fluid, then fixing it into place. The result is a language of curves and knots that holds tension and grace in equal measure—works that feel at once ephemeral and permanent, intuitive and exacting. Her sculptures have been exhibited throughout the Bay Area and across the United States, resonating with collectors and designers for their quiet drama and tactile elegance.

Extending this vocabulary beyond the studio, Gong partnered with Nest Studio hardware to translate her signature knotted forms into luxury brass hardware. The Knot Collection distills her sculptural movement into touchable, functional pieces—petite cabinet knobs, architectural drawer pulls, and oversized hardware handles—that bring a sense of crafted poetry to cabinetry and furniture. In metal, as in wood, Gong’s work captures a fleeting moment made lasting: a bend held mid-breath, a line drawn in space and sealed in time.