KATIE M. WESTMORELAND - 06/04-19-17
Otto's Abode is pleased to present a exhibition of colorful and ephemeral works by Artist in Residence Katie M. Westmoreland. The exhibition features work previously made by Katie in Cold Spring, NY as well as work made in Wanakena, NY during her residency at Otto's Abode. The work can been seen within the gallery during regular hours as well as outside the gallery anytime on the corner of Hamele and 4th Streets in the village of Wanakena.
To see more of Katie's work visit www.katiemwestmoreland.com.
I paint the light and shadow moving through a place as I exist within it. My work inhabits the overlapping space between nature and the world of consciousness. I intertwine multiple creative languages to commune with and document the natural world. The light and shadow paintings are a reflection of my dreams, my environment, along with the feelings and shifting states of mind that occupy my personal landscape.
My understandings are sifted through synesthesia and ideasthesia. I paint on semi-translucent, tinted fabric in colors chosen to match the atmospheric light of the place. The fabric is treated like a curtain - as both a veil and a surface. Both sides are painted. I utilize photographic materials and processes, often in a raw state, so the paintings can subtly and indefinitely shift in response to the surrounding light. The process of transcribing flickering light and shadow patterns is a manual form of photography. The resulting painted image is influenced by the clouds in the sky that may momentarily obscure the sun, the rotating of the Earth that causes the shadows to shift and stretch, the breeze moving the leaves and the fabric, and the pace at which I see and trace each light or shadow shape.
The paintings are made as photographs and function as textiles. I belong to a family of quilters. At a very young age, my mom let me paint on fabric and taught me to sew the paintings into a quilt. This legacy has evolved and intertwined with my fascination with Oulipo literature and my immersion within an active dream life. During waking hours, I engage with light and shadow patterns that mirror the flickering, ungraspable imagery of my layered dreams. My light collection paintings form a prescient response as I negotiate the material and immaterial.
Katie M. Westmoreland
