Kathy Guest
I’m an American artist who loves paper and design and pattern. I credit my Polish heritage for my innate attraction to pattern - my paternal grandparents were immigrants to the US. I have visited Poland and am connected to relatives there. The pieces I’m entering here both include molded paper portraits of my face using a method that I devised using lightweight papers. The round piece uses pages from a world atlas folded into fans as well as embossed paper butterflies I make – I use them often as recurring thematic elements for me: “Hope has Wings.” The world map fans imply hope for the world in this context. The X piece was made as part of an alphabet series though in the context for this show, the face at the center of the X connotes that those of us who want civil and just societies are marked to reach out and work for that goal. Again, there are butterflies that are the recurring theme for me for hope.
Printmaking was my first love as an artist. Through my experiences with linoleum embossings and deep intaglio plates, I developed a great appreciation for texture. In the studio that grew into building unique assemblages with paper exploiting the spatial possibilities of paper as well as its surface manipulation.
Circle of World Hope
