Kate Petley’s glowing and lyrically reticent abstractions come about through a complex process that weds state-of-the-art digital with old-fashioned gestural painting, and sometimes it’s difficult to see where one leaves off and the other kicks in—but that’s part of the seduction.
Petley’s road to quirky but accomplished abstraction has been far from smooth. Born in Port Chester, New York, she moved to Kerrville, TX, at the age of five when her parents divorced, and later attended high school in Houston. For college, she landed at the University of Utah because of a high-school romance. There she studied sculpture and ceramics with the late Marilyn Levine, who specialized, as Petley puts it, in “hyper-realistic works that look like they fell off a stage coach.” A week after Petley graduated with a BFA, her long-time boyfriend died in a car accident at the age of 22. “I made a lot of unfortunate life choices after that tragedy, and I gave up plans to be an artist.” For about ten years, she took on odd jobs, did some modeling, taught guitar, and then, in 1987, ended up back in the studio.
Kate Petley’s work is in numerous corporate and public collections, including the Houston Airport, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Nicolaysen Museum, UCLA Santa Monica Hospital, Morgan Stanley San Francisco, Vail Industries, and Fidelity Investments. In 2015 she completed an invitational residency at the Franz Mayer of MunichArchitectural Art Glass studio in Germany. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including an NEA Rockefeller Foundation Grant. Her monoprints are published by Manneken Press, and Petley is represented by Robischon Gallery in Denver. More about her can be found at katepetley.com.
A wonderful article about a wonderful artist!! Thanks Ann.