‘When I need to escape, this is where I go’

Any day in need of a little brightening up (like Philly today) deserves a glimpse of the photography of Laura Kicey. Her dreamlike photos feel like the first breath of a crisp morning. A peep at her online portfolio revelas an array of colors and feelings both subtle and haunting. We got to pick Laura’s brain about her work and inspirations. Keep reading to see her answers.

when-my-life-began
when my life began © Laura Kicey. All Rights Reserved.

How long have you been taking photos/how did you start?

The Kicey family seemed to basically be completely over photo-taking by the time I was about 3 years old. There was never a shortage of cameras around, and my father keeps with that curious ‘tradition’, accumulating lots of cameras but basically never using them. I was completely disinterested in photographs as both an artform and a means of documenting things for the bulk of my life up until my college courses dictated that I take a b&w film photography class my sophomore year. Inexplicably I got hoooked and proceeded to take a studio class every semester until I graduated, including an independent study during which time I designed and constructed a book of my photos by hand. After college, I ran off to work in Manhattan and I no longer had access to a darkroom or enough money to buy film in the first place. Plus I had lost the camera I had been using. So more than three years passed where I basically didn’t take photographs at all. I got a 3MP point & shoot Olympus one Christmas and would take it out on walks with me now and then. After I had had it perhaps a year, one of my clients introduced me to flickr in December of 2004. I have not stopped taking photographs except to sleep ever since. I did however upgrade my equipment since then.

sheers
sheers © Laura Kicey. All Rights Reserved.

How is your work influenced by living in Pennsylvania?

Having grown up in Lancaster, I spent my formitive years hating all of the rural emptiness. When I moved away and returned to PA, I learned to see the beauty in it all. Whenever I was bored, I just kept looking until I found something that excited me. Since I moved to Ambler 6 years ago, I have spent a great deal of time exploring Philadlephia, and we are not talking about just Center City, Old City etc., but driving around some of the most dangerous areas of the city in search of colorful, unexpected and decaying ‘improvisational’ architecture to use in one of my projects. I’m not quite brave enough to explore these places on the inside, but when I travel around the suburbs and more rural areas outside the city, I have been lured into a great many gorgeous old abandoned buildings. I’m not sure what it is about Pennsylvania, the wealth that turns to poverty molding the landscape and buildings, the fading industrial buildings, an overwhelming sense of melancholy in all of these forgotten places? I think it is all of the above.

lasting-impressions
lasting impressions © Laura Kicey. All Rights Reserved.

What are some of your everyday inspirations?

Themes that are always present in my work are the things I try to surround myself with and actively seek out. Typography, color theory and design have always shaped my work. My background is in graphic design so my design work informs my photography and vice versa. Nature has always been a theme present in my work, less in the I’m-going-out-and-shooting-landscapes-and-animals manner but more observations on how nature reclaims manmade structures. Architecture has become especially integral to my work over the past couple years, both in photographing the interiors of abandoned buildings as well as in my ‘construct’ series, which are digital architectural composites.

Can you explain the process and birth of the Construct series?

Almost two years ago I started having some health problems that prevented me from being as mobile as I had been used to. At the same time I was examining my archive of photos and noticing that I had a great deal of images of architectural details that I had not used as photographs on their own. It occurred to me that I could use them to build my own buildings, so that while I was not able to be out exploring I could make my own places to escape to, that were comprised of images from places I had already been. I combined signage, windows, doors, fire escapes, walls, boards, painted on typography and plants together to create new places with altered colors and orientation. There are elements of reality and of the impossible, they are not ‘perfect designs’ and could not necessarily exist at all in three dimensions. Still they are places I wish I could visit and see inside of because their outsides are so very compelling to me, I find creating them quite comforting.

What’s the best advice you’ve been given about photography?

Look more that you shoot. I always spend more time looking at my subjects without my camera than with. I think there is nothing more important than pre-visualizing what you are shooting. Also shoot with both eyes open when you look through the viewfinder. Much less risk of falling into holes and getting hit by cars.

Do you have a favorite series or photograph that you’ve taken?

There is a particular abandoned house I have visited several times and I find there to be something particularly magical about the site. I like to protect the locations of the houses I visit so I give them names I find appropriate to their character, and this one I called ‘the house of smoke and mirrors’. The architecture of the house was unusual alone, but there were interesting details that the previous inhabitants had added – many mirrors, decals, wallpaper, fixtures and peculiar doors – and there was a mysterious something that created curious color effects in the images I shot there.

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Several photos from the Construct series are featured in the book Beyond Architecture: Imaginative Buildings and Fictional Cities that was just released in the U.S.

Laura is designing a book of her abandoned residences, Living Rooms, that she is working to self publish this year. If you’re in the Philadelphia area, check out her work in the show Artist Friendly Exhibit on the second floor at 307 Market Street that will be on display until April 17. If you’re not so fortunate to see her work in person, check out her Etsy shop where you can get a print of one amazing photo (or two!) for your very own.

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