Katherine Keltner’s Picturing Me is an installation as self-portrait, made of the stuff of her life: scribbles in school notebook margins, CDs, sheets of slides, and used datebook pages hang next to things that are more obviously monumental like a school achievement award or a tennis trophy. While portraits are typically a direct image of someone or thing, and in contrast to contemporary practices of memorializing parts of our lives, predominately in virtual space with straightforward curated and controlled images, Keltner proposes ephemera representing events and moments in her life as an intimate form of sharing, similar to looking through a private scrapbook, to flesh out a picture that is fuller than just an image.
Amidst this self-presentation, there are current works that similarly present a portrait of something that is not directly there. Keltner continues her exploration of the element of trace in artwork, recording an inverse image of something that was once there. The exhibition as a whole proposes an alternate portraiture, relying the physical representation of an event to “paint” the image.
Katherine Keltner is a Brooklyn-based artist whose body of work includes paintings; drawings; photo-based, mixed media collages; and an artist’s book. Her work has been shown in galleries and museums including Katzen Arts Center, Trestle Gallery, Momenta Art and JCAL and she has given artist talks at institutions including Hunter College and the National Women’s Studies Association. Keltner is the current Artist-in-Residence at Rhombus Space and a recipient of past fellowships from Ragdale Foundation and Vermont Studio Center.
http://www.katherinekeltner.com
Picturing Me is on view at Sweet Lorraine Gallery from March 3rd – 26th