Written by Dejha Carrington about her encounter with the far east inspired photography of Kate Wilson.
Photograph credits to Kate Wilson (kate.photography2010@gmail.com)
Last winter, a dear friend suggested we travel to India with a few others who had already made arrangements and purchased their tickets, weeks prior. We chewed on the idea but had to act quickly… Finances, sublets, travel visas, flights and everything else that comes with leaving the country and high-maintenance clients to their own devices for an extended period of time.
I boarded a plane from my home in Miami to Houston to fast-track the visa process, and the very next morning, was at the Indian embassy charming (begging) the attendant to rush the application. Running through Memorial Park, visiting the Carlos Cruz-Diez exhibit, and working remotely from Field of Greens café, this detour was but a stepping stone – a warm-up exercise – for the events that would follow six days later.
From New Delhi to Mumbai and Goa, the experience was exhilarating, destroying preconceptions along the way. When I drifted from Frommers’ guides to the moment itself, my mind became awake with curiosity and adventure.
Determined to stay a couple of nights at Yoga Magic, a retreat I’d read about in a fancy coffee table book, I spent my final days in India inspired with calmness. Over breakfast, I met Kate Wilson – a photographer from England photographing interiors and atmosphere for the property’s website. She shared some of her fine art photography with me, and we talked about the art scene in Anjuna, Goa and how she’d organize local fairs. Her images captured the simplicity and soul of my travels.
Though Miami is experiencing its very own renaissance, it is still young without the sweet, weathered flavor of a historical city. How would a 30-foot photograph of Kate’s ‘Buddha’ look wheatpasted (wall-papered) against the side of a South Florida building? Months passed and emails were exchanged, but it’s not until five weeks before Miami’s world-famous art fair week that my vision for a mural began to take shape as a reality.
During Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2011, Kate traveled across the Atlantic to create a large-format version of ‘Puja’ on the west wall of Space Lighting Gallery in Wynwood Arts District, and sold several canvases and prints at the venue’s pop-up exhibition space.
Her artwork reminds me of what it is to think and seize and act upon a sequences of impulses, one at a time.
