Klea McKenna July 24, 2021 - August 14, 2021

Klea McKenna

July 24, 2021 - August 24, 2021

Klea McKenna uses the photogram process to create unique gelatin silver prints that contain both vivid detail and ethereal abstraction. Unlike a photograph created with a camera, a photogram is a one-of-a-kind object that involves physical contact between a subject and the light-sensitive printing surface, representing the mark of that interaction. This exhibition is a curated selection of work from 4 different series, Rain Studies, Web Studies, Automatic Earth, and Generation.

Rain Studies are an ongoing series of unique gelatin silver photograms of rain made outdoors at night. McKenna began making these on the big Island in Hawaii, where rain is plentiful but continued them back home in California as it suffered through a period of severe drought.

Web Studies are unique gelatin silver photograms of rain caught in the webs of orb-weaver spiders. Remarkable feats of engineering built each day to catch prey, the webs are also delicate and damaged. Like the patterns found inside trees and in our own lives, the webs follow a particular form yet each is unique and exquisitely flawed.

In her series Automatic Earth, McKenna emphasizes the physicality of the photogram process and builds on it by forcing the paper to record texture as well as light. Working in near darkness she applies pressure on the center cut of a tree to physically imprint the texture into the photographic paper and then selectively exposes the paper to light creating what the artist calls a "photographic relief."

With Generation, McKenna applies this method to textiles and women's clothing from different cultures that are rich in the legacy of touch: from the labor of their making to the textures of the designs, to the marks of continual wear. For McKenna, her process "is driven by my desire for communication with women from a time and place different than my own...With each alteration, mending, and use, someone has inscribed themselves onto these textiles."