Kate Kennington Steer
As a visual artist, I am currently experimenting with ways of merging and combining photography, painting, printing and poetry onto/into a single surface/image - using physical techniques rather than solely through the medium of digital collage. I am seeking funding for materials to complete a series of 21 panels for a ongoing project called ‘bright-+/well’, looking at wellbeing and the built environment, following a residency at the New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, Summer 2023 (made possible by a bursary from DAiSY (Disability Arts In Surrey)).
Using many layers of paint over canvases covered in collage, gesso or texture paste, my paintings emerge in fits and starts, since I am utterly dependent on my variable levels of physical energy. Painting is vital to my mental, emotional and spiritual health. Each canvas or board is a direct, if cumulative, expression of feelings that arise when I ‘paint’ using strong colours (often influenced by seasonal tones), a water sprayer and unorthodox, ’found’ utensils, that might include sticks and stones, cheese graters and plastering tools. Each painting emerges from an initial word, poem or prayer (inscribed on the base layer) that informs the work, so that the final image resolves itself as a counterintuitive visual poem that rewards long-looking.
In my photography work, I am fascinated by the somatic experiences that connect nature and contemplative photography. I find they are ideal for receiving and making images which articulate something of my ambiguity about owning a disabled identity for myself. I am currently working on a long-term project called ‘every ten breaths’, exploring my relationship with my home, where I am often made ‘housebound’ by chronic illness.
As a printer, I love using the same ‘found’ tools as I do in my painting to make marks and creature texture, which I can then use in collage and mixed media work (which includes incorporating collograph, cyanotype, lumens, and drypoint). As a lino printer, I get entranced by shapes and places, and I get fascinated by the interplay of layers, complexities and essences. I am currently trying to work on a more abstract series looking at reflections in the built environment relating to my ongoing bright-+/well project.
All this feeds my poetry, which feeds my would, which means that sometimes I blog irregularly on the themes of creativity and spirituality. I am currently editing a memoir, Walls, Wounds and Wonders, about a bed bound year with chronic illness explored through interlacing text and photography. This photography grew into a Facebook iPhone project called ‘Acts of Daily Seeing’ which has been running since 2015.
