Replay:

New Works On Paper by Kate Petley

an online exhibition

Replay can be viewed at Artsy

The exhibition runs through January 31st, 2021

M anneken Press presents “Replay: New Works On Paper by Kate Petley”, an online exhibition of eleven unique hand-colored prints by Kate Petley. These works were produced in October 2020, when COVID-19 restrictions made the artist’s planned trip to Manneken Press an impossibility.

A solution to a dilemma

Each project published by Manneken Press is an opportunity for an artist to create or adapt a visual idea into the print medium. Typically, the artist works side by side with the printer who assists in realizing the artist’s vision. Many factors are at play in this collaborative effort; the artist’s insistence on a particular outcome, or their openness to serendipitous opportunity, even the weather or what one had for lunch can be an element of influence. In the summer of 2020 Kate Petley was to spend a week at Manneken Press working on a new series of monoprints, but the COVID-19 pandemic threw the plan into disarray. Health concerns made an in-person visit impossible, and we were faced with the choice to either postpone or improvise. Undeterred, Petley suggested the idea of a remote collaboration as a solution to our dilemma.

At Manneken Press we revived and repurposed several of Petley’s vintage intaglio plates, printed a number of impressions from them in a variety of colors, and shipped the etchings to Kate in Colorado. There, in her own studio, she proceed to work on the group of prints as a related series, contemplating each one before altering and augmenting it. The process unfolded in much the same way that it would have at Manneken Press, but with obvious differences- rather than using printing ink and a press Petley used stencils and acrylic paint, and the enigmatic calculus of collaboration was stretched out through time and distance. The eleven images are luminous and intriguing, with layered colors textured by the speckled effect of the sprayed paint applied with a mouth atomizer. The project unfolded in ways neither of us had expected, but these prints could not have come into existence in any other way.

I n the midst of the worsening pandemic, it felt very necessary to push forward with this project, and I’m so glad we did; it speaks to the importance of human connection in the face of enforced isolation, the persistence of creativity through times of stress and difficulty, and the determination to push through obstacles and find ways to create beauty and meaning.

Replay: New Works On Paper by Kate Petley can be viewed online on Artsy now through January 31, 2021.

Contact Manneken Press for additional information or to inquire about purchasing any of the works in the exhibition.

All images above are from the “Replay” series of unique hand-colored prints.

About the artist

Collapsing the boundaries between sculpture, photography, and painting, Kate Petley reframes the history and meaning of the luminous surface. Her radiant surfaces contain experiential planes of color, light, and form. Manneken Press has published four monoprint projects by Kate Petley since 2013, which can be viewed here.

Petley has solo exhibitions in 2020 at VonLintel Gallery Los Angeles and Robischon Gallery in Denver. She will present a solo exhibition in 2021 at the University of Colorado Art Museum (CUAM), curated by Director Sandra Firmin. Additionally, Petley is the guest curator for a nine-artist exhibition for the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, also opening in 2021. Her work has been exhibited at MCA Denver, the Museum of South Texas, the Nicolaysen Museum, Fotofest Houston, the Martin Museum at Baylor University, Museum of the Southwest, the Arlington Museum of Art, and other institutions.

Petley has been featured in thirty solo exhibitions and has completed numerous public commissions and installations. She participated in PhotoIreland 2017 and is a Ucross Foundation Fellowship recipient. Awarded an NEA Rockefeller Foundation Grant, other residencies include the Mayer of Munich Glass studio in Germany and Platteforum Denver.

Collections include the Museum of Texas Tech University, the City of Houston, Fidelity Investments Boston and Denver, Stanford University, Morgan Stanley San Francisco, the Federal Reserve Bank Kansas City, and the Polsinelli Collection.

Born in New York, Kate lives and works near Boulder, Colorado.

above:

Happier times: Kate Petley signing prints at Manneken Press in 2018