Klea McKenna
Automatic Earth

September 8 2019

Klea McKenna captures emergent patterns in nature on photographic paper, but without the use of a camera. It is still light that exposes the structure, but the transmission is done through physical contact with the place. So the images are made through touch rather than through sight of a camera.

Automatic Earth refers to what I see as a “blue print” that exists within nature; a plan within each organism to automatically generate a particular form or pattern that is then, inevitably flawed. I approach these broken patterns within the landscape as allegories for human emotional experience. It is where the pattern breaks that we are told something: a draught, a trauma, an interaction, the slash of a chainsaw…. a crack in the earth. The flaws in these pre-destined forms become a record of time and of labor and they tell the story of the life that made them.

Artist’s statement

Watch a video about the process behind her Photographic Rubbings.

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Rainstorms & Rain Studies, 2013-2016
Web Studies, 2013-2016