KAITLYN DANIELSON | Shelter, 2020

 I am a collector of old photographs. Drawn to their delicate yet enduring physicality, I marvel at these perfect illustrations of time’s passage and find endless beauty in their decay. Removed from their once-beloved, now obsolete photo albums, the snapshots are turned over and I am confronted with the direct mark of a human hand. These uncovered gestural marks resemble a unique calligraphy similar to abstract painting. By way of erratic composition, disparate photos find their way together, the abstraction of the ripped paper, glue stains and chemical residue speak their own language. Obsessively arranging the shapes, textures and colors, I create balance, find order, and discover a place to direct fear of my own decay. The act is a meditative visualization of personal memory. Reminiscent of Rorschach tests, my subconscious reveals itself as the artworks take form. What remains is evidence of my memories, still moments of time, images of thought.

BIO

Kaitlyn Danielson is an artist based in the Catskill mountains of New York. She holds a BFA in Photography & Video from the School of Visual Arts where she received the Rhodes Family Award for Outstanding Students and the SVA Alumni Scholarship Award. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and featured in PDN magazine, Musee' Magazine, Brutjournal, and Lenscratch. Kaitlyn’s practice is rooted in historic photographic processes where she relies on the fundamental ingredients of silver and light to produce an image. The sensitive and sometimes unpredictable nature of these processes mirrors the vulnerability of life that she grapples with in her work. Finding solace in visualizing life’s ephemerality, her photographs become a tangible, permanent record of her encounter with mortality.