Contact Kate: kate@katekellyart.com

About roots & Off-shoots

To arrive at these images, I use digital technology, an Olympus digital camera, and the tools available on the computer program Photoshop.  Images are downloaded, added to and altered; the finished piece might in fact be a montage using upwards of ten, twenty, thirty or more photos combined with drawings.  The end result rarely bears resemblance to the original digital photograph(s).

This new work, using revolutionary, digital darkroom technology, is not visually far removed from the work I have done in the past in the traditional darkroom, where I also altered imagery, using chemicals and various techniques, i.e. solarization, as well as applying paints and dyes and using the collage technique.

The inspiration for the roots & Off-shoots series sprung directly from my experiences kayaking in Northport harbor this past summer. Sometimes I would launch at 6am and experience the most lovely morning quiet enveloped in the first light of day. Oft-times the harbor appeared as a smooth expanse of glass, thus the reflections in the water were stunningly defined; the colors radiant. Sitting so low in the water allows for a unique perspective and time itself seems to slow down, allowing for a rare opportunity to focus on one’s immediate environment.

Kayaking at sunset offers yet another visually rich and rewarding experience – striking cloud formations outlined in vibrant hues of yellows and reds; silhouetted masts of countless sailboats dancing against the setting sun and later beneath the rising moon.

Upon returning from my voyages I immediately set to work combining the photographs I had taken, the experience on the water still fresh, the salt air still in my lungs and on my skin.

A few additional bridge images came from an afternoon stuck in traffic on the Robert Moses Causeway returning home from a visit to the ocean. Some few other images were taken on shore at Seymour’s Marina in the Village of Northport.

Working in layers with different photographs allows for the combination of many images taken at different times in different light. Working this way I strove to create a single image that captures the sensation of being enveloped in the rich and varied and newly discovered beauty that is in my “own backyard.”

I hope you take as much pleasure from viewing this world as I have had in re-creating it.