Brown Foundation Gallery
July 14 - August 19, 2018
Opening Reception Saturday, July 14, 2018
6:00 – 9:00 PM
Artist talk at 6:30 PM
Kalee Appleton
Supplementary Scenes
Kalee Appleton’s work deals with the nature and materiality of photography through the enduring tradition of landscape photography. Supplementary Scenes explores the objectivity of idealized landscapes and utopian worlds depicted in the photographic backdrops commonly used in mainstream photography studios. Like many photographs throughout history, these objects force viewers to question truth and contemplate the mechanical nature of photography, as the pure purpose of these backdrops is to exist as a false contextual object in the aid of transporting a sitter to an idealized world. The imagery produced not only acts as a supplemental scene to a portrait, but also exists to fulfill the desires of the commissioners and sitters of the portrait. Appleton skews and distorts perceptions of space, transforming these backdrops into the sculptural subjects of her photographs. The medium is further pushed into the sculptural realm with irregularly shaped frames. Imagery either responds to the grain of the wood frame or follows the perimeter of the folded landscape, pulling the photograph from the gallery wall while depicting the 3D altered landscape on a 2D surface.
Kalee Appleton is a photography-based artist and educator living in Dallas, TX. Originally from Hobbs, NM, she attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX and received a BFA in Photography in 2005. After graduation she worked as a corporate and aviation photographer, and she later attended Texas Woman’s University in Denton, where she received an MFA in 2014. Appleton exhibits her work regionally at Erin Cluley Gallery in Dallas and has exhibited nationally at Filter Photo, Chicago, IL; Houston Center for Photography; and Fotofest International, Houston, TX.
