Profile
Kinky grew up in a crowded Manhattan apartment, started out with home-made stickers and went on to paint subway cars in the Bronx yards before becoming a founding member of the Klitty Crew in Zurich in 2017. Known for her pink claws, her cheeky wink and a famously wobbly 'garden-chair K', she brings letters, characters and restless energy to every crew wall. Her real gift is people: wherever she travels she meets 'someone you should know', and many of the crew's walls, workshops and trips began with one of her introductions. In 2026 she told her story to CatMonch for CatWorldNews.
Timeline
- 1999Born in Manhattan
Kinky is born in Manhattan, New York, into a lively household of eight family members.
- Early 2000sChildhood in Manhattan
Grew up in a Manhattan apartment with eight family members, one bathroom and a lot of opinions, and preferred colour, movement and truck lettering to the classroom.
- 2000sFirst stickers
Cut out her first stickers at the family kitchen table – a little cat with a terrible attitude – and made twenty more after its first harsh review.
- 2010sSubway cars in the Bronx
Went from pocket-sized stickers to painting wholecars in the Bronx yards, learning that a small mistake in a notebook becomes a very large one on a train.
- 2010sArt school
Gave art school a chance; found the long debates tiring but met interesting people there.
- 2017Founding member of the Klitty Crew
Founded the Klitty Crew in Zurich with DeeNice, SinDee and PoshX on 17 July 2017 at 17:17. Read more →
- 2017KC Hello and the garden-chair K
Helped paint KC Hello, the crew's first wall in Kreis 5, where her wobbly K was christened the 'garden chair'. Read more →
- 2018Back to New York
Spent three weeks with her family in New York, walked her old Bronx routes and sent the crew a sketch every day. Read more →
- 2019Community-centre wall in Oerlikon
Introduced Mira, caretaker of a community centre in Oerlikon, which led to a tree wall designed together with the neighbours. Read more →
- 2020Stay home, stay wild
Designed the lockdown sticker 'Stay home, stay wild' and painted a winking cat with a guitar on her window. Read more →
- 2021Draw your own crew
Led the crew's comeback kids' workshop in Wiedikon, where forty kittens invented their own crews, and lettered the resulting kids' wall. Read more →
- 2022Stockholm bridge
Organised the introductions for the crew's trip to Stockholm, where her long cat became the bridge in a joint wall with a local crew. Read more →
- 2023Workshop on broken letters
Opened the crew's year-long workshop series with a letters evening that started with her famous garden-chair K. Read more →
- 2024Klitty Skyline
Painted the busy left-hand streets – New York energy and subway-car colours – on the crew's biggest wall so far in Zürich West. Read more →
- 2024Sketchbook evening exhibition
Initiated and hosted a one-night exhibition of thirty sketchbooks in Kreis 4, from her Bronx books to the Skyline scaffold. Read more →
- 2025KlittyCrewPower
Scribbled the KlittyCrewPower fist-paw on a napkin – the design that became the crew's first sticker line. Read more →
- 2025Shanghai
Visited a graffiti exhibition in Shanghai and reflected on painted trains and the story of graffiti in Zurich. Read more →
- 2026Stickers and fan shop
Saw the first sticker sets go live in April and prepared her own fan shop for the launch of klittycrew.com. Read more →
- 2026CatWorldNews interview
Interviewed by CatMonch for CatWorldNews about the Bronx, the garden-chair K and the crew; published in October 2026. Read more →
Murals & projects
| Year | Work | Place | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | KC Hello | Zurich, Kreis 5 | Letters and sketch for the owner; the original garden-chair K |
| 2018 | Seventeen | Zurich, Zürich West | Cats climbing the numbers, finished from her sketchbook while she was in New York |
| 2018 | Autumn wall | Zurich, Wiedikon | Letters |
| 2019 | Baikal Blue | Zurich, Kreis 4 | Sky blend |
| 2019 | Rooftop cats | Barcelona, courtyard by the sea | Contacts, wall and the KC letters |
| 2020 | Thank-you wall ("Thank you. We see you.") | Zurich, Kreis 4 | Letters |
| 2021 | Open Again | Zurich, Zürich West | Doorway cat stretching out with pink claws |
| 2022 | Bridge wall | Stockholm, by the water | Long cat forming the bridge; introductions to the host crew |
| 2023 | Tile mural | Zurich, Zürich West | Outline grid and a winking cat climbing stairs |
| 2024 | Klitty Skyline | Zurich, Zürich West | Left zone: busy streets, subway car with ears |
| 2025 | Paws Up | Zurich, Kreis 4 | Outlines |
| 2026 | Where It Started | Zurich, Kreis 5 | Faces |
Travels
- 2018 – New York (family visit, Bronx yards)
- 2019 – Berlin (crew trip)
- 2019 – Barcelona (crew trip, rooftop mural)
- 2022 – Stockholm (joint bridge wall)
- 2023 – Lisbon (sketching trip)
- 2024 – Paris (Zulu Lettre at the Globo)
- 2025 – Paris (Zulu Lettre at the Globo)
- 2025 – Barcelona ("Four Cats, One Sea")
- 2025 – Shanghai (graffiti exhibition)
- 2026 – Paris (Zulu Lettre at the Globo; BandO1 show and letter lesson)
The Klitty Crew is a comic universe – all stories, meetings and events on this blog are fiction. Real artists, magazines and places only appear as inspiration; no real meetings, statements or endorsements are implied.