In Situ
Exhibition Wednesday 1st - Saturday 25th October
Artist Statement:
First encounters explorers had with unknown worlds, the desire to leave what is known for the unknown, and how exploration created map making or cartography as a way of explaining journeys to others who came later, has always interested me.
Maps can also exist in the world in the stars, in the weather patterns, and in memory. I explore the unknown through painting outside year-round to connect to what I see around me and how that is able to be translated visually through pigment on to a surface. Maps like paintings can offer insights into what is known or has been seen or witnessed as a remnant of what was encountered after the moment has passed.
I am interested in the fleeting nature of moments captured within my experience, within the ephemeral.
There is a point of contemplation that exists before the moment has gone, and in painting, I believe that the time and light quality at particular times of the day explores ideas engaging with the emotional architecture of place and atmosphere. Pigment and fluid on the surface of a work can embody the tension between the proximity and distance described from the painter grounded in space. So I would like to hope that the viewer can feel something about what I felt at the time of painting, being both here and visually elsewhere concurrently.
I paint outside in Northland, in situ at Matapouri Bay, observing the sea and sky in all seasons and temperatures day and night which at times can be physically challenging. With continued observational painting within this environment, I have noted that with time and painting on paper or panel nothing that I see is ever the same, and that moments can pass from memory forever if not in some way captured in the moment they occurred.
Kathryn Carter 2025
