Kelly Breedlove

My work currently deals with complex childhood memories and familial relationships while growing up in a complicated South. My work is photo based, but I am not a photographer. I begin choosing photos I connect with on a visceral level, photos that resonate with me from my core. These are usually personal family photos, but not always. Sometimes they are of strangers, but the activities or emotions depicted in the photos always resonate with me deeply, and usually connect to my childhood in some way or another. 

Through my selection and handling of each photograph, I try to explore and uncover the true emotion, “my truth”, in what is depicted on photo paper at that moment in time. Oftentimes the scene depicted doesn’t match the true emotional undercurrent present in the situation. I use mark making techniques to shift visual focus, evoke certain moods, reveal hidden meaning and hep me connect on a deeper level with the subject matter of the photo. 

My mark making may take the form of sloppy splashes of paint, collaging of material elements, adjustment in photoshop and the physical destruction and deterioration of the photo itself. I do all this in an effort to discover and convey the photo from my point of view. If I had taken the photo the image would be from my point of view at the time the photo was taken, but since I’m not a photographer, I am appropriating the image and using my techniques to express my truth regarding the subject matter.