k

STATEMENT

Between 2012-2019 I made photographs inside commercial airplanes. Confined to the window seat I studied sunlight as it illuminated passengers and the curvature of cabin interiors. This small aperture between window and rows of seating revealed unique views at the interface of the body and machine, organic and engineered, and the natural and the artificial.

I am interested in light and its relationship to environments of extreme precision, engineering and design. An airplane cannot spare anything that is not necessary. Within the airplane is a human organization closer to a chrysalis than the architecture of flight. A stasis from which passengers will emerge subtly transformed. And in this confinement that feels close to both birth and death, there is incredible light. It is in flight that humans come closest to the least scattered source of sunlight.

In the beginning I photographed the aerial view out the window — a cold, detached, and mesmerizing blueprint. Over time I discovered a more intimate view within the aircraft —bodies, sunlight, hands, and drapery. Reduced to limb, drapery, and light we resemble each other; row by row we are each other’s other.

Metaphysics, 2022. Installation, UV 7-color pigment prints on acrylic, blackened steel frames, specialized LED lighting

EXHIBITION HISTORY
2022—Kate Joyce: Metaphysics, SITE Santa Fe, Jan 21—April 24, 2022
https://sitesantafe.org/exhibition/kate-joyce/

2019—The Qualities of LIGHT group exhibition, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson PLANE (grid) as part of the exhibition and permanent collection celebrating the legacy of pioneering NYC photography gallery, LIGHT (1971-1987). Dec 14, 2019-May 9,
2020

2018—Santa Fe Institute 2018 Board/Trustee Symposium Complexity of Time May 5, 2018 Santa Fe, NM

PRESS for Exihibition
“A window on an interior world: Kate Joyce’s ‘Metaphysics’” by Michael Abatemarco, Santa Fe New Mexican Pasatiempo March 11, 2022

PRESS for book
Kate Joyce: Metaphysics, book review by Blake Andrews for Collector Daily, November 23, 2022