Art + Science: Blood and Kin: K.K. DePaul

Art + Science: Blood and Kin: K.K. DePaul by Linda AlterwitzJuly 5, 2019

©K.K. DePaul

Artist, photographer, educator, and gallery director, K.K DePaul examines themes of memory and family secrets by creating visual narratives. The art pieces from her series Between the Lines tear apart and reconstruct multiple sides of the personal untold story of her grandfather who was hanged for murder. She creates assemblages using photographs, text, and a variety of objects such as closed envelopes, pins and remnants of old books to create a visual vocabulary. As memories of her grandfather’s life are stitched, pinned and assembled, the viewer is drawn into a multi-faceted moment in time leaving the viewer with a desire to decode and reveal the hidden truth.

©K.K. DePaul

Between the Lines

In 1929 my grandfather was hanged for murder.

It was a taboo subject in our family, and out of respect for my grandmother, we never spoke of it. We believed that because my grandfather had been convicted on circumstantial evidence, he had been convicted wrongly. After my grandmother’s death, I came into possession of a box she left for me. Contained within were all my grandfather’s personal effects from the year he spent on death row…newspapers, magazine articles about the trial, letters from lawyers, family members and friends. It became quite clear…as I read between the lines…that he was guilty. It was also clear that my grandmother knew this all along, and that after her death, she wanted me to know it, too.

I am a storyteller.

My use of collage indicates a story told in two voices, representing identities that have been torn apart, stripped, reflected upon, and ultimately reconstructed. I see the layering of paper and photographs as being similar to how our mind organizes memory…at different depths…one over another…constantly shifting. I feel as though I am trying to solve a problem with multiple solutions. In the layering and re-layering…the combining and recombining…the telling and retelling…I finally realize that I am no longer telling the stories that were contained in my grandmother’s box.

I am telling mine.

©K.K. DePaul

Kim’s award-winning work as a collage artist and photographer has received national and international attention. Her work has been published in Black+White Magazine (UK),EyeMazing, Diffusion, and PhotoWorld (China), as well as exhibitions in the US, Paris, UK, Barcelona, and Edinburgh. She was the recipient of the 10th annual Julia Margaret Cameron Award in 2017.

In addition to her solid exhibition record, Kim has recently been expanding her interests to include alternative process photography, mixed media, filmmaking and book design.