Kathryn Fanelli Artist Statement

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I combine my background in a traveling family

carnival with ideas found in the oldest wisdom traditions as a way to

question the notion of illusion. What is central to my interest

in contemplative practice is how it can be implemented as a tool for

examination, liberation, and re-storying.

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As a result, I've reconsidered the Western canon of art to

‘master materiality’ and instead, cultivate a path towards liberation

through processes and approaches in art-making where material

transformation and artistry evolve the artist, placing primacy on human betterment.

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Earlier paintings hint at these new processes. Painting methods of

steering and dragging paper through paint floating on water become,

“meditations", which re-enact the circumstances impressed upon the

landscapes between imbalance and harmony. I consider these paintings

“schematics,” the surfaces resembling climate conditions affecting

terrain and order in chaos.

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Recently, my practice has shifted into the realm of the

sculptural. I seek out materials physically connected to my life such as wild clay, sugar, light,

beeswax, handmade drawing materials and paper, soap, mirrors, and carnival stuff, and reshape them,

often re-mythologizing their meanings in fresh ways. I’ve combined

Buddhist principles with the carnivalesque, contrasting opposing

perceptions along the themes of illusion/truth, karma/liberation,

compassion/brutality, and impermanence/ continuity.

 

Our social conditioning of objects and materiality are often held hostage to our

relationship with them and must be set free from convention. I

continue developing this creative/contemplative practice to support

human understanding, fundamentally seeking liberation from confusion.

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