Kaley Flowers

Kaley Flowers is a Ontario-based ceramic artist drawing inspiration from the convergence of nature and technology. Working from her woodland studio, she invites viewers to reflect on the interplay between the digital realm and the natural world, offering a perspective of seemingly disparate elements and our increasingly interconnected lives.

Flowers strives to preserve the ephemeral nature of the Internet, solidifying it within the enduring permanence of ceramic material. Throughout her work, intricately carved details harmonize the complexity of digital aesthetics with the tactile textures and presence of the natural world. Often she aims to explore the evocative power of gifs, memes, and other digital ephemera, appreciating their influence on contemporary culture and the collective human experience.

Delving into the vast Internet Archive, Flowers meticulously searches and selects gifs from old websites of the early 2000s. These nostalgic symbols, once prevalent amongst bygone virtual landscapes, become immortalized in her physical clay objects. By reimaging iconic digital symbols, she hopes to spark dialogue surrounding the value of archiving our rapidly evolving digital heritage, while inviting viewers to reconnect with their own memories and emotions tied to these modern cultural touchstones.

Flowers is a graduate of OCAD University in Toronto, and completed a 3-year term as an Artist-in-Residence at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre in 2020. Her work has been shown internationally and across Canada in galleries such as Hashimoto Contemporary (San Francisco), The Hole (NYC) and the Dunlop Gallery (Regina). In 2019, she attended ACRE Artist Residency (Chicago), the Picnic Art Festival (Shanghai), and was awarded Juror’s Choice at the Salt Spring National Art Prize (Canada).