Kate Petley: Chances Are
March 12 - April 16, 2022
Opening reception: March 12, 4-7pm
Von Lintel Gallery
Kate Petley, Side by Side, 2022, Archival Print and Acrylic on Canvas, 30 x 48 inches (76.2 cm x 122 cm)
Von Lintel Gallery is delighted to announce Chances Are, its second solo exhibition of abstract artist Kate Petley, who we are thrilled to confirm will be in attendance at the opening on March 12.
Petley’s debut at Von Lintel came at a time of great global change in 2020: a fitting coincidence given the theme of transformation is integral to her work. Her image-making process involves assembling sculptures from quotidian materials – cardboard, tape, paper, film and “stuff out of the trash” – before selectively applying paint to these makeshift objects. They are then photographed, with Petley manipulating lighting, scale, and layers of colored gels until she achieves her desired effect. The subsequent images defy description. Elevated to mythical proportions, her sculptural forms become luminous topographies: distinct from and obscured by overlapping geometries and finely gradated fields of color.
To use University of Colorado Art Museum Director Sandra Firmin’s description, her photographs “mesmerize”, and this impression is heightened when Petley opts to print them onto canvas. Her rationale for doing so is multiple. Not only does it blur the categorical boundaries between sculpture, photography and painting – canvas being the substrate on which the latter is produced and exhibited – but the enhanced scale of this irreconcilable imagery favors an emotional and physical reaction that circumvents logic. Petley continues to knit the qualities of these disciplines together by adding brushstrokes of acrylic directly to the canvas, further jostling our perception between the two-dimensional surface and the photograph’s illusion of depth. The end result is the overwhelming achievement of her aim to “create images that affect our deepest level of vision”: re-awakening our sense of sight in an Insta-obsessed, image-saturated world.
Kate Petley has participated in solo and group exhibitions nationwide and internationally. She is currently in a group show at the Grinnell College Museum of Art. Previous shows include On Screen/Off Screen: Contemporary Abstraction and Technology at Barry Whistler Gallery in Dallas, and Staring into the Fire at the University of Colorado Art Museum. Her work also forms part of public collections across the US, from San Francisco to New York, at prestigious institutions like the Stanford University, the University of Colorado Art Museum, and The Museum of Texas Tech University. Kate Petley lives and works in Longmont, Colorado.
For additional information or visual material, please contact the gallery at (310) 559-5700 or by email at gallery@vonlintel.com.
Kate Petley, Passage, 2022, Archival Print and Acrylic on Canvas, 36 x 40 inches (91.4 x 101.6 cm)
Kate Petley, Agreement, 2021, Archival Pigment Print on Baryta Prestige, 18 x 26 inches (45.72 cm x 66.04 cm), Edition of 3 + AP
Kate Petley, Streaker, 2020, Archival Pigment Print on Canson Baryta Prestige, 18 x 26 inches (45.7 x 66.0 cm), Edition of 3