LORTON, VA.- Like windows into alternate worlds, the layered portraits presented by Kate Brogdon at Arches Gallery reveal more than what is apparent at the first. This is extended to the scattered containers of various things surrounding and further connecting the work on the walls. Arches Gallery presents her solo feature from 13 June until 3 August at the Workhouse Art Center.
“Myth to reality” is a group of portraits painted from the world around Kate, exploring themes of perception and personal history through the other media they incorporate. These pieces use images and transient paperwork from life to show reactions toward less ideal aspects of our world, such as not being fully heard, damage to our environment or the dismaying reality of aging. A portrait was historically crafted to capture a real person; now it serves as a starting point for various tales. Many of the images draw from nature and are contrasted with discarded materials. Some may be familiar and relatable as almost everyone is similarly saturated by media and advertising. This creates a shared basis from which to explore how our individual backgrounds and experience of culture may shape differences or similarities in our understanding of our worlds. The surrealness of new contexts parallels the slight viewpoint disparities that often shape how people interact. The installation “Everything is interconnected” parallels the idea of connection while creating another layer to dig through.
“I am interested in why people think as they do. But having access to only my own true thoughts, anyone else’s motivation is based on just my interpretation. The intent is for the viewer to see all versions as part of the mythology while understanding the basic motives. This nuance between the ideas underscores how we are all the same yet all different, and sets up the true myth.”
Kate Brogdon was born in Vienna, Austria and has moved multiple times worldwide, collecting images and ideas from each location. Living in different places with different cultures has influenced her interest in how people develop their unique worldview. This idea of each person finding a their own approach to similar things based on their various backgrounds and experiences is explored by combining photography, paint and found ephemera to represent ideas of a multifaceted world. The many nuances found in a variety of images and materials represent how these layers of knowledge and interaction serve to create each person’s personal history and develop their particular viewpoint. Overlaying images in different ways is how Kate approaches this way of multiple seeing, in the idea of capturing fragments or layers in perception. Layers in the visuals create layers of meaning to capture the complexities of the world.
Artist's statement:
What is a person’s reality and how did they arrive at this way of thinking? Everything we do and where we go makes who we are. I am examining the degrees in how people create their realities through the frame of my experience.
I am interested in people’s points of view: mine and others. How are we shaped by others while we also alter our world? I explore found items and multiple images in various media to capture my memory of the environment as the idea of how our world view evolves and how we see things very differently at different times.
Combining images in different ways is how I approach this way of “multiple seeing,” in the idea of capturing fragments or nuances in perception. Visual combinations create shades of meaning and often results in fortuitous juxtapositions and interesting unplanned mixtures, along with changes and bits left over as part of the evolution of thought in the span of the work.
In these layers of visuals, I aspire to create layers of meaning to describe the complexities of the world. This also creates interest both from a distance and up close, with small details to be revealed in each examination.
