Kathryn Kelley

Houston based artist Kathryn Kelley up-cycles and reanimates objects of urban refuse into large fleshy sculptures that often stand in the place of the self. The impressive scale of these pieces creates a theatrical position for viewers who are confronted with gregarious forms, or intimations of the shadowed self. Remnant inner tubes, doors, frames & windows morph & mingle in these ambitious works.

Kathryn Kelley was inspired by her writing for this new work.

Tell me the story of when fire came down and consumed two souls, two melded not in sameness but in fiery harmony, where they fit together and made a wholeness, a rightness, a space of intimate belonging, where love and partnership merged in the flame, a love so deep the aching overwhelms. Tell me the story of the unfolding of the fragments of wholeness through the vehicle of love. Tell me the story of a fire that can burn me with goodness and beauty. Tell me this story, not one of shadows; one of hope, not hardening. Let me flee the shadows that are bleak with chill and harden my soul in areas that have only yet begun to thaw. Tell me the story of love and light, the one that draws back the curtains of my soul and beckons me to the scent of dawn. Tell me the story where I can know light, where I can flow into the future fully present, one where this gentler light warms the hard places of my soul. Tell me a story of fire.

I don’t want to hear the story of she who steals, who embraces the cold shadow of lie and self-deception that dance teasingly over her heart.

I don’t want to hear her story of longing that goes empty, a space where she remains vacant and lost and wretches in the wilderness of her under grown soul.

I don’t want to hear the story of the girl who got lost in her head with a thought, an idea, who lost all sense of presence and found herself alone in the vacuous cavern of her own mind, treading where no one hears the echoes of her footfall.

I don’t want to hear the story of the girl who sacrificed herself for doing only what is right, who didn’t know love because she was to afraid of doing wrong.

I only want one story; I don’t want to hear the others for fear that they are me.