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KIT PORTER (1983 - 2023)

Beaufort, South Carolina

Kit Porter (b. 1983) is a mixed media artist living and working in Beaufort, South Carolina. Porter received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the University of the South in 2005. Her abstract language has evolved from her interest in the way an object left by the sea wears down as a result of time and environment. To characterize this process of diminution, she paints around and into her subjects to create shapes which appear carved, softened and shaped from the outside. Whether painting literal pieces of marine debris, or dissecting flowers + fields into abstraction, Porter’s paintings abstract and fragment natural forms to act as a metaphor for the fragility of the physical world.

Artist statement

I am intrigued with the way an object left by the sea, exposed to the elements, wears down as a result of time and environment. For me, it is the perfect metaphor for the fragility of the physical world.

Years of painting fragments of marine debris has led me to develop a painting technique to emulate this process of breakdown and weathering, which I refer to as diminution. By painting around and into shapes, I am able to create fragments that appear carved, softened and shaped from the outside, to characterize the concept that time and environment alter the size and quality of everything.

Whether I am painting literal fragments of debris I have gathered, or dissecting my subjects into abstraction, I present fragments as a metaphor for the fragility of the physical world.