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KAT DUDLEY
ROUTES
A NEW SERIES OF PAINTINGS RELATING TO MEMORIES OF CALIFORNIA 2025
When you are away from home, living in a different country, - its the daily humdrum that you miss - because it’s not there. The humdrum of life in another country is completely different - different food, different weather, people, suroundings, car - nothing is the same. you miss the familiarity of things one takes for granted and don’t even think twice about it when they’re part of your daily life. This made me question the ‘value of the everyday’. Our lives are almost all routine. We make the routine, We build our lives around it. And yet we barely notice this until it’s gone! and we replace it with another routine. In another country this new routine will fly’in the face of all we have ever known. This is why I think snippets of life about ‘home’ hold such meaning when your suroundings and lifestyle dictate a different routine in a parallel world.
The studies developed from the inital sketches bore such a strong resemblance to the ‘routes’ I travelled so often and brought subtle memories back to life - wide open spaces, staight roads running alongside the pacific ocean, the brightness of the Calefornia lightand blue skies. the Spanish pink toned architecture, the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the palm trees,the street thata l lived on, the beach I would drive to in any free time.
This series of work has given an emotional connection to that time which was overshadowed by the busyness of life when returning to the UK - thus forming a refection.