Patrick Kelley Lecture

Patrick Kelley grew up in a suburb of Minnesota where he was influenced by his somewhat empty and still natural environment. His father let him play with his 35 mm camera where he became interested in the process of photography which included print process and how you frame a composition. He became even more interested in art in college where he took a ceramics class and many photography classes. Kelley went for walks in nature around Lake Superior where he focused on pristine and untouched objects like rocks, snow, and tiny sticks and placed them compositionally so that you could not tell their scale. He was somewhat influenced by Ansel Adams print proces and nature scenes. Later Kelley started to break this pristine environment by adding things and making his own marks to the scene such as throwing rocks on a frozen lake and breaking the ice. In his senior year of college he created pictures where he wanted the audience to not be sure of whether he had altered the pictures or if they were just unique setups in nature. After college he became interested in digital imaging and created videos that he used in installations and made into small flipbooks. One of his installations was a collaboration between him and another artistDave Ryan which was titled the "Engine Room". They used a working lab to create screens full of flashing colors with a persons silhouette in each. Random digitalized voices filled the room to create an eerie ambience. Right now Kelley is working on videogame maps where you can travel around the digital space and as you move towards some objects notes of music that were assigned to that object become more pronounced.