Handmade & Heartfelt
Photo-Based Work by Three Women:
Heidi Kirkpatrick, K.K. DePaul & Rachel Phillips
March 10 – May 14, 2016
Opening reception for the artists:
Thursday, March 10, 7pm
Dina Mitrani Gallery is pleased to present Handmade & Heartfelt: Photo-based work by three women: Heidi Kirkpatrick, K.K. DePaul, and Rachel Phillips, with an Art Talk and opening reception on March 10th at 7pm. Each artist utilizes the photographic image as a base, but the objects and surfaces that the images are adhered to are unique and varied in texture and concept. They explore paper, tins, old envelopes, cabinet-cards, dominos, Mah Jongg tiles, and fabric, which create multi-layered stories. The works are visually compelling treasures, as the eye deciphers meaning within the images themselves, as well as the objects they embellish.
In her work, Heidi Kirkpatrick has explored the female figure, family narratives and contemporary issues of being a woman. She combines film positives with found objects such as vintage children's blocks, books, mahjong tiles, and tins to create intimate objects that explore themes of family, history, love and loss. Heidi's intent is to create works of art that are approachable in form and content, and that are interactive, yet fragile.
Kirkpatrick, who is based in Portland, Oregon, has exhibited widely over the last fifteen years and her work is held in numerous private and public collections including The Harry Ransom Center, Austin, Texas; Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Springfield Museum of Art, Ohio; The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, Louisiana; OHSU Corporate Collection, Portland, Oregon. Heidi was selected for the Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014, and was recognized with the solo show award in 2012. Heidi’s work was also selected for LensCulture Emerging Talent Awards Top 50 in 2014.
K.K. DePaul is an explorer of secrets, combining and recombining bits and pieces of memory to make sense of her family stories. Fascinated by multiple interpretations, double exposures, and the ambiguities that arise depending on which character is telling the story, her process begins with a collection of images and words. Her use of collage indicates a story told in two voices, representing identities that have been torn apart, stripped, reflected upon, and ultimately reconstructed.
Based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, DePaul’s award-winning work as a textile artist and photographer has received national and international attention, and has been included in the corporate collections of: Smith- Kline, The Mayo Clinic, and Capital Blue Cross. Her work has been published in Black&White Magazine, EyeMazing, Diffusion, PhotoWorld, and the New York Times. Kim has also developed and led a series of photography workshops in Paris, Tuscany and Venice.
Rachel Phillips’ is exhibiting work from three separate series, Field Notes, Divinations and Fixed. Field Notes are wet transfer images of paper houses onto found vintage envelopes and post cards. Divinations is a series of found vintage albumen portraits which are then illustrated with other imagery symbolizing various ways of attaining spiritual experiences. And finally, Fixed is a result of a welcome error in an archival process revealing the color bands that create a 3D effect.
Phillips, who lives in San Francisco, began photography while completing her undergraduate degree at Skidmore College, graduating in 2005. Her work has been included in many group exhibitions, including shows at the Institute for Contemporary Art in San Jose, The Phoenix Art Museum, The Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, PhotoEye in Santa Fe, and Panopticon Gallery in Boston. Rachel's work has appeared in publications including Photo District News, American Photo, Black & white UK Magazine, Diffusion Magazine and LensWork, as well as online in Design Observer, LensScratch, the Huffington Post, LightLeaked, and Don't Take Pictures. In 2010, her series Field Notes was included in Photolucida's Critical Mass Top 50. She was an Artist-in-Residence at RayKo Photo Center in summer 2014.
