Kalli Padgett

My current body of work "Emergence" deals with emerging from one state of being or thinking, into another. The idea was to depict visual pictures of the collective human consciousness emerging into a more enlightened self, thus inspiring people who see them, to seek further enlightenment for themselves. The work strikes a nerve in viewers to realize a responsibility in what it means to be human and embark upon their individual "hero's journey."

The psychologically rich content is pieced together from my dreams, experiences, and research to form a familiarly real, yet totally unreal mythological picture. Vast, eternally abstracting landscapes create an illusion that the figures in these paintings are alone and amount to all human life. They are acting out a glimpse into the psychological state of humankind's socio-political landscape. This perspective reaches into the topics of surface categories like ethnicity and gender and deconstructs them into linguistic delusions. When segregational concepts like these are shed, we can begin looking at others as if they were ourselves and live connected. - Kalli Padgett, August 2020. 

Biography:

Kalli Padgett is an artist from Lafayette, Louisiana with Cajun dissent. Her work advocates for a deeper exploration of human identity. As a mixed media artist, there are no boundaries for her in the wild west of contemporary art. Elements including figures, native plants, and other symbols are brought together from her dreams, life encounters and research to throw viewers into a psychologically reflective experience.

Kalli's current body of work “Emergence" portrays a strong reverence of the Louisiana landscape which she uses to reflect the socio-political Landscape of the time. With a realistic style of painting, elements are pieced together to form familiar, yet dreamlike scenes blurring the boundaries between conscious and unconscious experience.

With shows In Denver CO, Savannah GA, Louisiana, and France, she is determined to spread her work world wide. Padgett is beginning to collaborate with welders, carpenters, and projection mapping artists. She hopes this will bring her work into a more interactive, large-scale arena. She is always looking at ways to expand her artistic practice, and in doing so hopes to expand the human experience.