Kate Breakey

September 01/2025

Joseph Bellows Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming solo exhibition, Kate Breakey: In Pursuit of Light, opening on September 20th. The exhibition will feature a salon-style installation of Breakey’s color photographs of moths. Each pigment print on display is uniquely framed by the artist, drawing out the subtle details of the nocturnal creatures with pastel and pencil, and continuing the artist’s established tradition of hand-painting the surface of her photographic prints. 

In her monumental moth portraits, the exquisite form and pattern of these seemingly caped insects are showcased by enlarging their features to hundreds or even thousands of times their size, celebrating the unique details and elegant shapes. Moths are in the insect Order Lepidoptera, and share this Order with Butterflies. There are some 160,000 species of moths in the world, compared to 17,500 species of butterflies. In the United States, there are nearly 11,000 species of moths.

The artist states, “My fascination with moths began long ago, perhaps because they go unnoticed and are somewhat unloved. They are primarily nocturnal and often drab—not as colorful or iconic as butterflies—but they are staggeringly beautiful if you look closely enough”.  

Her depictions follow a lineage of natural history and scientific illustration, and art photography, with an affinity for the work of naturalist illustrators Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), John James Audubon (1785-1851), and botanical photographer Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932).  A passionate advocate for conservation, Kate Breakey invites us to reflect on the unseen splendor of the living world and the dire need to protect it before it vanishes.  Her work reminds us to recognize how inextricably interconnected and dependent we are on the natural world.

Kate Breakey's work is held in many public collections, including The Australian National Gallery in Canberra, the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, the Austin Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern & Mexican Photography. 

Monographs by the artist include: Small Deaths, Flowers/Birds, Painted Light (a career retrospective that encompasses a quarter century of image making), and Las Sombras / The Shadows.

For press inquiries or to inquire about purchasing, please contact: info@josephbellows.com