Katie Kindle received the 2025 Denis Roussel Award / Christopher James Award.
The Christopher James Award is a one on one portfolio review.

“The immediate impression I get from your portfolio is one of a catalogue of things no longer present or alive — reading like a personal archive of objects once exquisite and now represented in a visual elegiac. That these are made using a difficult dry plate process on tin illustrates the degree of importance that your subject matter represents in your life.  As you wrote in your statement, It is a process dependent on light, time, water, and alchemy – as is the process of creating the initial images. Working with the earth and the images reminds me of the power of being present in the moment and the ephemerality of life.”  This may be best exemplified in your X-ray like image of the black flowers, their bulbs and hairy roots… the anatomy of a tulip where the life-giving tendrils are as present as the once colorful and living flower itself.

Where most floral images celebrate the bloom, your image is monochromatic, full of the processes’ artifacts that yield an organicphysical quality to the work. The image, in its beautiful simplicity, doesn’t nostalgically depict the flower in the moment… it remembers it. I’m wondering if you know Olivia Parker’s work from the 70’s?

One other feeling I experienced while thinking about your images this past week was how you have reconstructed your subjects… the 38 flowers, the dead honey bees, the dragonflies… the tulips. They are suspended in time, playful in death, deconstructed for meanings that permit the viewer to find a personal impressions in the work. Your images are secure in their independence and philosophical examination and successfully satisfy your intentions and audience.” Christopher James 

Would you please tell us about yourself?

I was fortunate to grow up in Colorado with parents who enjoyed being outdoors, hiking, and gardening, and who inspired a deep love for nature in me. Most of my work relates to the environment in some form through various photographic processes. I have exhibited and taught photo-based art and helped promote other artists’ work. I find joy in anything that involves plants and in creating art in the studio or in collaboration with other artists, scientists, or culture bearers.

Where did you get your photographic training?  

It started as a kid with my plastic film camera bouncing around the Colorado mountains, then high school by cutting class and sneaking into the darkroom with friends, Savannah College of Art and Design, additional workshops such as with the Parkeharrisons at Anderson Ranch, and various classes through photographic centers.

Who has had an influence on your creative process?

There is quite a long list from artists to writers to mentors, but I will start with gratitude to Denis Roussel. He was an amazing artist who made me fall in love with analog processes again after taking his wet plate class, and refocused my love for nature. I also have much gratitude for Hamidah Glasgow, who was the Executive Director at the Center for Fine Art Photography. Hamidah became a friend and a mentor who really started me thinking more critically about the power of contemporary photography, and opened my world to a whole new community of amazing artists doing incredible work about the environment and social justice through insightful exhibitions and grant writing for the Center. That is how I met a fantastic friend and artist, Melanie Walker, whose work is also on this site. She has shown me how photography can be used in beautiful, unconventional ways that are always inspiring.

Please tell us about an image (not your own) that has stayed with you over time.

I had the rare opportunity to see the early photographic works of Anselm Kiefer a few years ago, and they have been on my mind for a while. Specifically, the image with the melted lead cloud over a silver gelatin image of a barren landscape called “Heavy Cloud,” and also a painted photo where he is standing on a chair in a dress, raising a tree branch, and he seems to be evoking the power of nature to heal. As a mixed-media artist, I am drawn to the raw power of his images and materials with their beauty and sometimes absurdity to convey a more serious message. He used his art to speak out about the Nazi’s genocidal history that was suppressed by the German government, how it poisoned the people and the land, and how not facing that history doesn’t allow for healing.
Watching the parallel of war crimes being committed in Gaza (and the current U.S. involvement in that) makes me appreciate artists who are speaking out today for human rights, especially when the US has not reckoned with its own traumatic history.

What image of yours would you say taught you an important lesson?

Some of my most valuable lessons have come from choosing not to take certain photographs. At times, taking a photo would not have been respectful to the subjects or the context, reminding me that not every image is mine to capture or my story to tell. There are also moments of awe and wonder that are best preserved as memories rather than photographs. These experiences have taught me to slow down and respect both the moment and the people or places involved—an important lesson that goes beyond what I learned in art school.

New MIgration © Katie Kindle

Please tell us about the work you submitted to Denis Roussel Award

This is really one of my favorite bodies of work. It was concurrent with a garden project I was working on to transform the land I am responsible for into something more regenerative. There is a sense of urgency about issues facing the environment, and also due to proximity, I called the series “Immediate World.” It was my way of addressing larger ecological issues in a more metaphorical and intimate perspective of this backyard microcosm. Ideas of manipulation and chance, belonging, desire, and destruction all come into play – all while being very aware of the connection between my impact on this space and its impact on me.

The garden is my sanctuary, and creating images from that land deepened my connection to it. These dry plate images rely on a process dependent on light, time, water, and alchemy, much like the garden. The reciprocal relationship of working with the earth and the images reminds me of the power of being present in the moment and the ephemerality of life.

What part of image-making do you find the most rewarding?

Although the outcomes are nice, such as exhibitions and being in community, and getting the work out of the studio and having it resonate with someone is great, the actual focused hands-on studio time is really the best part. The physical process of making images in the studio or outside is always full of surprises and magic in the analog and collage processes.

How do you work through times when nothing seems to work?

Oddly enough, some of what I would consider my “best” work has come from failures and learning. If I am not failing, then I am not learning, so I keep a steady practice of doing some kind of work to try to push my comfort zone and detach from outcomes. If nothing seems to be working at all, then I go spend some time in nature to just observe and listen, research or read about topics that interest me, or go play with some completely different creative materials to lead me back to where I should be in the process. Most times, it is just about doing the work and trusting myself and the process.

What tools have you found essential in the making of your work?

A journal and a sketchbook are essential. I am constantly inspired by what I see or read or research, and constantly writing. For a while, I was trying to track or save a lot of that on my phone, but I am an analog person at heart, and it is much more gratifying to be able to refer to images or thoughts in a sketchbook as my virtual memory vs. trying to find something again on my phone.

Is there something in photography that you would like to try in the future?

I would really like to do another scientist and artist collaboration, preferably during a residency. A project that would let me nerd out on research and science and create images in response to that, like which plants are the most beneficial for the phytoremediation of toxic metals, or how migration patterns of hummingbirds or other birds are changing due to climate change and phenological mismatch. That type of thing… Or a residency outside of the U.S. to further my recent work in response to gun violence and collaborate with another artist from their perspective. Just putting that out in the universe, so if anyone wants to invite me to do something like that or knows of a good residency, then please let me know!

How does your art affect the way you see the world?

I am fortunate to get to focus on art for long periods of time, and it is like a type of meditation that makes me more mindful in my daily life and more present in the joyful moments, such as those in the garden or hiking. It also makes me more aware of just how interconnected to each being we are and appreciate those cycles of life through daily observations. Lastly, I am realizing lately how powerful art and artists can be to stand up against oppression, or institutions and governments would not be trying to silence or censor artists.

What’s on the horizon?

I have been an artist in residence and volunteer with Guns to Gardens Denver, an organization that creates safe disposal events and turns unwanted guns into garden tools and art. I am creating murmuration collages of birds from cyanotype images of guns that students from area high schools also helped me cut up. They represent coming together in peace, creative unity, and collective action instead of tragedy and destruction. I am excited to be showing this new body of work at Walker Fine Art in Denver, opening in January 2026, and hopefully doing some other programming around that to bring the community together around art, gardening, and healing.

Thank you Katie.

To learn more about the work of Katie Kindle please click on her name.