Kate Petley

2011

My work broadly describes a personal experience of location and light, influenced by the feel of our semi-urban world and the edges where

it bumps up against nature. Details are extracted from odd moments that capture the subtleties of place and time. Sometimes I erase the

evidence of a particular place, leaving only my personal response. I'm interested in reuniting familiar elements of our surroundings in a way

that demonstrates both their ordinariness and their spectacular beauty.

A resin-based collage process architecturally constructs images using industrial films and mixed media combinations. Images are fused into

abstraction, coaxed into behaving as if they arranged themselves automatically without intervention. This is how we read the visually

oriented world, substituting one random image for another, as if it didn't matter.

Every decision I make is visible, each move is laid bare, openly exposed by the viewer's gaze. Unified by intensity and punctuated with both

melancholy and moments of joy, these works are doorways into and out of perceptual memories. They represent transitional conditions as

permanent states of being.

As the images arise from the real world around us, the arrangement of everyday components fuels my desire to elevate their beauty and

intrigue, redeeming these sliced up pieces of the world.