Karey Kessler
We live in a world that is mapped all the way from outer space right down to our front doors. I use watercolor, stencils, stamps and freehand writing to create maps that challenge the conventional notion of what it means to be here and subverts our sense of knowing exactly where we are.
Here can be a specific, known physical place, or, it can be an infinite conceptual space – a spiritual realm filled with time, light, and energy.
My maps create a bridge between spiritual places and physical locations, and the title of my show here is the Place plays on the fact that the Hebrew word for ‘the Place,’ ha-Makom, is also used as a name for God.
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.
There is real ecological grief for the environmental changes happening around us but my maps also tell stories of hope and repair and possibility while also exposing the urgency of the climate crisis and our ever changing environment.
Karey Kessler
- email: karey.kessler@gmail.com
- website: kareykessler.com
- Instagram: @kareykessler
- phone: 206.518.7080
- Facebook: Karey Kessler Studio
Exhibitions
Seattle Art Fair | July 21-24, 2022
Visit Shift Gallery – Booth A08at the Seattle Art Fair: July 21-24, 2022Tickets at: seattleartfair.com
Karey Kessler | Imagined Topographies of a Vanishing Wilderness
September 2 - October 2, 2021
Q&A with William E.Marsh, Karey Kessler, David Traylor, Anna Macrae, and Miha Sarani
Q&A with the artists
Karey Kessler, Anna Macrae, Miha Sarani and David Traylor with William Marsh and music by The Vanity Host | Lost and Found
May 6 – 29, 2021 The May showing at SHIFT GALLERY features artists Karey Kessler,
Karey Kessler
Exhibitions