Kathleen Carter Kelley 2026

Abstract

A Portrait of My Mother and Related Prayers is a collection of prints and original poetry linked by the common figure of the mother, as both person and archetype, that uses recursive storytelling to explore the layered meanings held within shared memories. A series of monochromatic prints use innovative approaches to letterpress pressure printing to transform photographs from the artist’s family archives into dreamlike scenes, evoking the experience of grasping for a fading memory. Accompanying original poetry invites the viewer into an intimate dialogue between mother and child, embracing the liminal space between memory and reality in an empathetic storytelling practice. Taken together, the collection uses snippets of shared memory as both the evidence and medium through which to present a deeply emotional interrogation of the socio-cultural structures which silently control our interpersonal relationships.