Olivia Kate Iatridis is an Inuvialuk actor and painter based in Vancouver, BC, who has roots in Tuktuuyaqtuuq, Inuvialuit Settlement Region, NT.
Kate Iatridis started making art as a child, learning from her mother, Gloria Iatridis, who sews, paints, and creates india ink drawings. She grew up with a passion for performing, first as a dancer and figure skater, and then in 2014 at the age of 13, she pursued acting when she and her family moved to Alberta. Though she has been working in the film industry for over a decade, Kate Iatridis’s first major acting job was in episode five of the live-action show Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024). Throughout her acting career, Kate Iatridis has focused on taking roles that challenge her. “I always try really hard to move away from being put into a box…I love taking something that I don’t know if I’ll actually be able to do. I love the challenge,” she says. Kate Iatridis’s role in Avatar: The Last Airbender is an example of this drive to take on challenging work. It was her first big role and experience working with green screen. Her role in The Irrational (2024) involved a longer scene with stunts and working with a stunt double, a new experience for Kate Iatridis, as well as working alongside the show’s lead actors. “In both cases I knew I really just had to go for it and try my best. . . . I try to remind myself to take up space and be confident in myself and my abilities and just really allow myself the freedom to have fun and be creative,” she says. In 2024, Kate Iatridis and her mother released Booked, a book about her early years navigating the film industry.
In 2025, Kate Iatridis started oil painting. “Art was never something I was planning on pursuing as a career. It was always something I did for self-care or just for fun,” she says. She is currently focused on painting portraits and is specifically interested in learning how to paint people. “I just have such a fascination with people and different experiences that we have as people and representing it visually without necessarily saying anything,” she says. Her paintings tend to be realistic in style, with detailed shading to create depth and realism, which can be seen in the Selena in the Sun (2023), a self-portrait.
Since starting her Bachelor of Fine Arts program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in 2025, Kate Iatridis has added digital illustration to her practice. Her first major digital illustration project was for the children’s book Sanikpiaq & Amagana Go Ice Fishing (2025), which was written by her mother. “The goal with the illustrations was to have this dreamy story that kind of pulls you in and makes you feel at home,” she says. The soft pastel colours of the illustrations create a nostalgic, whimsical feel.
One of Kate Iatridis’s main goals is to have her work exhibited in galleries. “I would love to move my art into some public spaces where people can really enjoy them,” she says. She also hopes to dedicate more time to her practice. “I’ve just been so busy with my acting for half my life, but I haven’t really had a lot of opportunities to make big paintings or really go and try things.”