New Mexico-based artist Kate Rivers debuts new work in an exhibition at Kay Contemporary Art at their Canyon Road gallery in Santa Fe.
Kate Rivers
April 21–May 4, 2023
opening: Friday, April 21, 5-7 pm
Kay Contemporary Art, Santa Fe
Kate Rivers, an avid reader and lover of books, constructs her unique collages by combining book spines and found ephemera into various patterns and abstractions. She works with color and texture, creating large wall pieces sewn together with metallic thread on an industrial sewing machine and mounting them onto canvas. Her newest body of work references land and cityscapes. The artist draws inspiration from the high desert and mountain vistas near her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as well as cityscapes from New York, Chicago, and London. One becomes lost in the colorful book titles that mimic the vibrant signs of Times Square or the deconstructed maps that fill the skyline of an expansive desert.
“I feel like a voyeur looking into the lives of others long past and reflecting on those lives.”
The artist restores that which may have been forgotten or discarded and which may stir memories. Embracing impermanence, the artist often reflects on lives that touched these books and cultural ephemera and explores new connections. “The stories we read and the stories we hear; these stories make up the vision of who we are and how we relate to others.” The act of construction and deconstruction engages a dialogue between the artist and the work being created, ultimately encouraging the viewer to piece together a new story.
Rivers’s evocative work forces the viewer to slow down the fast and fleeting world—if for just a bit—asking us to remember who we are and demanding closer inspection of what matters in our lives as we weave new threads of interconnectedness with all that is.
Please join the gallery for a reception with the artist to celebrate this new body of work on Friday, April 21, 5-7 pm.
kaycontemporaryart.com
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