Interconnections between memory, time and place
Karey Kessler creates map-paintings that contain ideas about physical, spiritual, internal, and temporal spaces.
“My maps tell the story of an ever changing environment, impermanence, and the immensity of time. They tell stories about the interconnected ecosystems of the world that don’t end where one country’s borders end and another’s begins: how both air and water (and therefore pollution), defy borders. The stories include deep time (before humans were on earth) and the eternal things that will remain once we’re gone.”
I create paintings that explore the entangled ways in which memory, time, and place are interconnected. I infuse my paintings with the anxiety of climate change and awe about the depth of geologic time and the vastness of the universe.
The work starts with ink and watercolor to make an assortment of dots, lines, and pools of color. Then, like a cartographer, I label areas — not with real locations, but where the marks and colors evoke feelings, thoughts, and memories. I keep a running list of words that I draw upon — phrases from poetry, novels, and science.
We live in a world that is digitally mapped from outer space to our front doors and even underground. Yet we still have no idea what “place” really means. My paintings create a bridge between spiritual, internal places and physical locations. They play on the fact that the Hebrew word for ‘the Place,’ ha-Makom, is also used as a name for God. In my paintings, “here” can be any known physical place, or it can be an infinite conceptual space—a spiritual realm— an underlying structure of our world.
Sacred Space (neither here nor there), watercolor and ink on Hanji paper, 1′ x 5′, 2017
perhaps the mist, watercolor on paper, 12″ x 24″, 2019
From the Stillness and from the Thunder, watercolor on paper, 3′ x 8′, 2020
here is the Place, watercolor on paper 3′ x 6 ‘, 2020
A Portable Homeland, watercolor on paper, 10′ x 3′, 2018
BEYOND the BOUNDS of THOUGHT
GATHERING LIGHT, watercolor and ink on paper, 33″ x 19″, 2023
hopeful Green while Worlds DISAPPEAR, watercolor and ink on paper, 2023
still WANDERING, ink and watercolor on Hanji paper on panel 24” x 48”, 2022
the Mystery, watercolor and ink on Hanji paper on panel, 24″ x 36″, 2022
the TERRAIN of the familiar and UNKNOWN, watercolor and ink on Hanji paper on panel, 30′ x 40′, 2022
this entangled Whole, watercolor and ink on Hanji paper on panel, 24″ x 36″, 2022
this ENTANGLEMENT, watercolor and ink on Hanji paper on panel, 24″ x 48″, 2022
This Ungraspable Whole, ink on watercolor paper, 3′ x 6′, 2021
unfathomable Eternity, watercolor on paper, 12″ x 24″, 2021
WONDROUS SPACE, ink and watercolor on Hanji paper on panel, 12″ x 24″, 2022
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All images copyright and courtesy of Karey Kessler
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