Artist Spotlight: Kately Towsley

Tempesta di Mare commissioned Kately Towsley to create the lead artwork for our 2023-24 Season. Catch up with Kately in a conversation she had with our Coordinator of Production and Administration, Sarah Giampietro:

What made you want to become an artist? 

Like many children do, I have been creating since a young age. The story goes that when I was about three years old I shouted to my mom from my carseat, “Look Mommy, I drew a bird!” Giving the immediate affirmation of, “Good job honey,” my mother was stunned to glance in the rearview mirror and see that I had, in fact, drew a bird that looked like a bird.

I have always loved making, and had an aptitude for aesthetics, but didn’t consider being an artist as a viable career path until university. It was at university that I realized art’s ability to develop new, different, or more profound ways of seeing and understanding. This discovery of art as a mode of communication and reflection is why I became an artist.  

What inspires you? 

I am inspired by our human experience, people’s stories, and what I don’t know; whether that be an emotional reaction I have, or the discovery that I don’t know anything about a critical history, or someone else’s way of life.  

What is your usual process like? 

I claim the term “conceptual artist” because my process typically revolves, first and foremost, around a concept. I am first struck by a concept—a realization, a moment of utter ignorance, wonder, compassion, or grief—then seek a vision of how to materialize those emotions in conversation with the event, social issue, history, or story that elicited those realizations. It is after I have formed the concept of a work that I explore materials and medium to decide what best conveys whatever it is I want to talk about.

At times, the process is extremely emotionally involved in the pursuit of processing and sharing a personal experience, at others I am educating myself in a research-like fashion in order to bring awareness to myself and others about a topic.  

Did your process for the Tempesta differ from your usual? Can you tell us how you made the Tempesta artwork? 

My process for Tempesta did differ from my usual in that I was not working with concepts or narratives about the human experience, per say, but rather visualizing musical works. I also am typically working in the three-dimensional, but here completed works on paper using pen and fine line work. However, there was still an effort to physicalize a narrative that exists beyond the visual, and there was still research involved in my process for the drawings’ compositions and content.  

Can you tell us how you came up with the ideas for the different drawings?

The ideas for the drawings were dictated by the musical works themselves, and any narratives or history surrounding the music, or sometimes its makers. For research, I gathered musical and historical information from professionals on the baroque period, and made aesthetic decisions in keeping with baroque troupes, motifs, and fashions.  

What are you working on now?

I am currently working on a papier-mâché project that involves sculpting at least three life-size human figures. The work is currently titled, ‘Step Over Me,’ and is about the intertwined issues of poverty, addiction, and homelessness in Philadelphia.   

For more information on Kately’s work, visit www.katelytowsley-art.com.