Photographer & Painter · Cape Ann, MA

Kathleen Gerdon Archer

Photographs that hold things at the edge of vanishing, and a life inside a single cloth. A painter's eye, working in light.

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A Single Picture Appeared — photograph by Kathleen Gerdon Archer

Photography

Geology

Flowers and figures suspended in ice and stone, caught the moment before they slip away. Photographed close, they read like core samples of memory: pressed, frozen, and still somehow breathing.

Surrounded in a Radius of Years
Surrounded in a Radius of Years
Not at Ease in this World
Not at Ease in this World
Aimless Inquiry
Aimless Inquiry
Fields of France
Fields of France
Winter Dreams of Ancient Seas
Winter Dreams of Ancient Seas
Only Think We Remember Knowing
Only Think We Remember Knowing
These Years of Days
These Years of Days

Photography · The Mapmaker's Dream

The Mapmaker

A dreamed narrative of the figure who tries to chart a world from a single room. Soft, blurred, half-remembered — each frame a private cartography of places only the mind has been.

The Mapmaker
The Mapmaker
The True Location of the World
The True Location of the World
Gazing for a Long Moment
Gazing for a Long Moment
The Alchemist
The Alchemist
Coastlines and Continents
Coastlines and Continents
A Kind of Frozen Wonder
A Kind of Frozen Wonder
Cartography is a Sublime Craft
Cartography is a Sublime Craft
The Invisible Power of Creation
The Invisible Power of Creation

Photography

Choice

Portraits told through a single cloth — the fabric a person keeps, mends, and carries across a life. Each photograph holds a biography in one chosen object.

Lee, at 86
Lee, at 86 — one of the original Folly Cove Designers, with her own design
The Upplutur
The Upplutur — an Icelandic dress worn by her grandmother; Alyssa wore it as her wedding gown
Elizabeth's bathing suits
Swimming all her life, bathing suits are Elizabeth's uniform
Ekua's Kente cloth
Ekua's silk Kente cloth from the Fanti tribe of Ghana
Angela and the scarf
Angela and the scarf from the trip to Paris that changed her life
Jeannie's jeans
Jeannie tells her life story with jeans; the bandana completes her biography

Small Sculptures

Core · Mantle · Crust

Hand-scaled objects that carry the same geology as the paintings — built up, broken open, and read like core samples of memory.

Core Mantle Crust I
Core · Mantle · Crust, I
Core Mantle Crust II
Core · Mantle · Crust, II
Core Mantle Crust III
Core · Mantle · Crust, III
Painting by Kathleen Gerdon Archer

About the Artist

A painter's eye, in every medium

Kathleen Gerdon Archer is a painter and photographer working from Cape Ann, Massachusetts. She earned her BA in Painting as an honors graduate of Montserrat College of Art, and that foundation runs through everything she makes — the photographs are composed like paintings, the sculptures built like them.

She formerly owned White Bird Gallery and co-owned FLOAT Gallery at the Rocky Neck Art Colony in Gloucester, where she has also served as a trustee and as program director of the Goetemann Artist Residency.

Education

BA, Painting (Honors) — Montserrat College of Art

Memberships

Copley Society of Boston · Kingston Gallery, Boston · Rocky Neck Art Colony

Selected Exhibitions

Griffin Museum of Photography · Danforth Museum · Carney Gallery, Regis College · ACRV, Italy

Recognition

Finalist, Photolucida Critical Mass · Solo shows: Reliquary (2018), Fare Well (2017), Geology (2014), The Mapmaker's Dream (2008)

Contact

Let's stay in touch

For inquiries about available work, commissions, or exhibitions, reach out directly. New work and shows are shared first on Instagram.

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