|
|
Statement
The images used in this series of jewelry pieces are appropriated from a pulp magazine printed during the 1950’s titled Secrets. The magazine photos were overly dramatic and stagy, both tragic and unintentionally comic, but somehow they captured the zeitgeist regarding female transgression. These reconfigured images freeze a moment in the daily drama of our lives and, set as jewels, they serve as paeans to the mundane.
By first manipulating, then converting these images to enamel decals (and firing them onto the surface) I can exploit the historical conventions of enameled portrait miniatures, and, in particular, 18th century decal transfers. Hand-painted enamel portrait miniatures were luxury items but with the development of the decal transfer process, in the mid-18th century, such jewels were affordable to a wider audience. Then as now the enameled image serves to provide a democratized view of time and place.
Biography
Kathleen Browne received her BA in Metalsmithing from San Diego State University in 1983 and her MFA from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in 1986. Her artwork has been exhibited widely both in the U.S. and abroad and has been published and/or reviewed in numerous publications such as Metalsmith, American Craft, New Art Examiner, The New York Times, Dialogue, The Plain Dealer, The San Francisco Chronicle. Her artwork has been published in eleven books and she has written a number of reviews, articles and catalogue essays for various publications. She is the recipient five Artist Fellowship Grants from the Ohio Arts Council. In 2005 she received the Distinguished Scholar Award from Kent State University.
|
|
