Installation view: Seaton Delaval Hall, Photo credit: Colin Davison

PILLARS OF DAWN

2015-2018 | Series of 12
6’x6′ duratran lightboxes, 40″x40″ C-prints

MONOGRAPH

Kelly Richardson: Pillars of Dawn
Published by Kerber, Germany
Texts by Dr Sarah Cook, Madeleine Kennedy, Alistair Robinson, Dr Emily Stamey, Dr Carmen Victor

COLLECTIONS

Foreign Affairs Canada
Kamloops Art Gallery (Canada)
Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art (UK)
RIH Foundation (Canada)
Southampton City Art Gallery (UK)
SMoCA (USA)
Private collections

SELECTED PRESS

Photomonitor, Helen James
(review, June 2018)
Studio International, Christiana Spens
(review, November 2017)
Arts Beacon, Grant Vetter
(review, November 2015)
Isotropix
(interview, December 2015)

“In her most recent body of work, Richardson imagines a desert landscape in which environmental conditions have crystallized the terrain. The prints are rich with art historical associations. Richardson cites first and foremost her collection of antique geographic and astronomic prints and her interest in historic wood engravings and lithography. One can also find echoes of the 19th century painter Caspar David Friedrich, whose romantic landscapes often depicted barren trees and medieval ruins in haunting, dreamlike scenes. The prints also recall the 20th century conceptual artist Robert Smithson, whose earthworks — most famously – Spiral Jetty, his monumental basalt coil in the Great Salt Lake—explored themes of geologic time and cosmic order. Perhaps the most apt art historical comparison, however, is with photographer Ansel Adams, whose iconic, black-and-white images of western landscapes functioned both as works of art and ardent calls for environmental preservation.

As do so many of her artworks, the images in Pillars of Dawn present a scenario in which we might have to look beyond our current planet for refuge and survival, and they raise myriad questions about how we arrived as such a moment of environmental crisis and where we might go from there.” Emily Stamey, Curator of Contemporary Art, SMoCA

Supported by Arts Council England, Newcastle Institute for Creative Arts Practice, Canada Council for the Arts, Isotropix

Pillars of Dawn (I)
2015-2018, C-print / Lightbox
40″ x 40″ / 72″ x 72″
Pillars of Dawn (II)
2015-2018, C-print / Lightbox
40″ x 40″ / 72″ x 72″
Pillars of Dawn (III)
2015-2018, C-print
40″ x 40″
Pillars of Dawn (IX)
2015-2018, C-print / Lightbox
40″ x 40″ / 72″ x 72″
Pillars of Dawn (V)
2015-2018, C-print
40″ x 40″
Pillars of Dawn (XII)
2015-2018, C-print / Lightbox
40″ x 40″ / 72″ x 72″
Installation view: Southampton City Art Gallery, Photo credit: Joe Low Photography
Installation view: Seaton Delaval Hall, Photo: Colin Davison