Klea McKenna
Artist Statement
I see landscape as an animate and emotional force rather than as a pastoral depiction. This perspective isn’t an idea I toy with; it’s actually my own experience of the natural world. My art practice begins as a response to a particular location, a landscape that I have a personal relationship to or that has a compelling history. With a desire to record an imprint of this place—rather than a picture of it—I devise ways that light sensitive materials can interact directly with the landscape and reveal something unexpected that decodes the way we experience a place or an element. The limited photographic materials I use, and the phenomena of light, provide both the inspiration and the limitations for my work. I use a variety of crude strategies: hand-made cameras, outdoor photograms, and methods of folding film and paper to create sculptural images and photographic installations.
While at Headlands
While at Headlands I will continue to work with photograms and cyanotypes to find ways that the unique medium of light-sensitivity can elucidate our experience of place. I’m considering how to push this work to become more overtly emotive. Working in close proximity to the ocean will be new to me and will likely influence my work in unforeseen ways.
