Signal and Marker (Monoprints)
Photogravure and relief monoprints
Archival oil-based inks on Hahnemühle Copperplate paper
24 ¾ × 20 ¼ in (bleed prints)
Each work is a unique impression, hand-printed from etched copper plates. Images extend to the edges of the paper. Each print is titled, signed, and dated in pencil on the verso and bears the Manneken Press blindstamp.
Published by Manneken Press.
Kate Petley is an American abstract painter whose work collapses the boundaries between photography and painting, reframing the history and meaning of the luminous surface through the ever-present backlit screen. Drawing inspiration from portraiture, still life, personal experience, and the mechanics of visual perception, her work explores how images are constructed, perceived, and transformed across media. She lives and works in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Manneken Press has published Petley’s monoprints since 2013. Her most recent editions are arresting images that blend three-dimensional and two-dimensional imagery, analog and digital photographic processes, and relief printing. For the Signal and Marker monoprints, Petley began by constructing simple sculptural objects wrapped in gradient film. These forms were staged, lit, and digitally photographed without alteration, elevating their modest origins to a mythic scale.
Using the nineteenth-century technique of photogravure, the photographic images were etched into copper plates and hand-printed in black ink. Petley then added transparent color through relief printing and stenciling, building layers of luminosity, subtle gradients, and overlapping geometries. The result is a striking series of related yet entirely unique prints.
The Signal and Marker works are photogravure and relief monoprints, each a unique impression hand-printed with archival oil-based inks on Hahnemühle Copperplate paper. The prints are bleed prints, with images extending to the edges of the paper, measuring 24 ¾ × 20 ¼ inches. Each work is titled, signed, and dated in pencil on the verso and bears the Manneken Press blindstamp. The initial release includes ten prints from the Signal series and seven from the Marker series, with subsequent releases bringing each image to a total of twenty unique impressions. Published by and available through Manneken Press.
Petley has received numerous awards and grants, including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2025) and an NEA/Rockefeller Foundation Grant (1990). Her residencies include Cow House Studios, Ireland (PhotoIreland, 2017); a Ucross Foundation Fellowship (2016); the Franz Mayer of Munich Architectural Art Glass Studio (2015); and PlatteForum Denver (2008).
Her work has been presented in more than thirty solo exhibitions, most recently at Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles; Robischon Gallery, Denver; and the University of Colorado Boulder Art Museum. Additional solo and group exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver; FotoFest Houston; Grinnell College Museum of Art; PhotoIreland at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin; the Museum of South Texas; the Center for Contemporary Art Santa Fe; the Nicolaysen Art Museum; the Martin Museum of Art at Baylor University; the Harwood Museum of Art; DiverseWorks Houston; and the Arlington Museum of Art. Her installations and two-dimensional works have been widely reviewed and documented for their ability to heighten the uncanny qualities of everyday experience.
In 2021, Petley served as guest curator at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. Her exhibition The Stubborn Influence of Painting occupied the entire museum and featured work by nine artists from across the United States and London.
Petley received her BFA cum laude from the University of Utah, with a focus on sculpture and ceramics.
University of Colorado Art Museum; Museum of Texas Tech University; Houston Airport System; Stanford University; NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital; Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City; Polsinelli Collection; Morgan Stanley, San Francisco; Nicolaysen Art Museum; UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center; Denver Children’s Hospital; City of Houston; Intercontinental Exchange, Atlanta; Vail Industries, Chicago; and Fidelity Investments, Boston and Denver.
"There is an awkward tension, a sense of familiarity, and an odd balance in the compositions. I’m looking for a particular rhythm, a clumsy formality that seems almost tender. Moving towards sensation, subject matter is pushed out and an experiential sense of space fills the gap left behind. I am determined to pull a non-existing image out of thin air using a vocabulary that is not about language and by complicating the relationship of foreground to background, alluding to a distinct presence, my own experiences are inserted”.
Kate Petley
