Etherton Gallery presents a special summer exhibition featuring early works by acclaimed photographer Kate Breakey, on view May 20–September 20, 2025. This selection of hand-colored photographs offers an intimate look at critical moments in her evolution as an artist. The exhibition traces the emergence of Breakey’s distinctive visual language, and showcases work from series such as Los Sombras, Naturagraphia, Clouds and more recent landscapes, offering insight into the shifts in subject matter and technique that have defined her career.
“My own collection of images serves as a record, a kind of a random, disjointed visual diary of the things I’ve seen and loved—a way to possess and preserve what is wild and ineffable, and above all transient... evidence of my life’s journey.”
—Kate Breakey
This exhibition reflects the emergence of Breakey’s distinctive approach: combining photographic methods with traditional artist’s tools—oil, pastel, and colored pencil—to transform paper, canvas, and other materials into richly layered, tactile objects. Each stroke of her pencil conveys a gesture of reverence for the natural world. Breakey’s awe is evident in her work, as she invites the viewer to share in her experience, fostering an appreciation of the natural world’s fragile beauty.
The installation, drawn from Breakey’s archive, will evolve throughout the summer. As work in the exhibition is acquired, new ones will be introduced in the exhibition, maintaining its dynamic nature.
About the Artist
Kate Breakey is internationally acclaimed for her large-scale, hand-colored photographs—luminous portraits of birds, flowers, and animals that blend photographic process with painterly technique. Her work has been featured in more than 150 exhibitions across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, China, New Zealand, and France.
Breakey’s photographs have been published in several monographs, including Small Deaths (2001), Birds/Flowers (2003), Painted Light (2010), Los Sombras (2015), and Slow Light (2016). Her work is held in several public collections among them the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University, and the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona.
A native of South Australia, Breakey lives in Tucson, Arizona, where the desert landscape continues to inspire her work.
