KELSY PATNAUDE

AT SEA

(with cole brauer)

Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI
25 October 2024 - 27 April 2025

Images courtesy of Giles Van Gruisen & Kelsy Patnaude

curator Dodie Kazanjian

KELSY PATNAUDE: AT SEA (with cole brauer), captures an exhilarating 130-day racing voyage aboard a 40-foot sailboat. Central to the show is Patnaude’s 100-foot panorama, created with photo-transfer, oil, graphite, and ink on linen. This sweeping artwork reflects the awe and fear of the ocean while narrating the compelling journey of Cole Brauer, the first American woman to complete a nonstop, single-handed race around the world.

When Brauer set sail at the end of October 2023, the two stayed in contact and Patnaude began painting the rigorous journey. Patnaude presents Brauer’s experience as the sole female competitor in the 2023-24 Global Solo Challenge, through multimedia elements, enhancing the visitor’s immersive experience.

“The longing to experience the unknowable – from awe to terror – calls many to the sea.”  (Note to self on the sublime in Patnaude’s sketchbook.)

In one way or another, all of Patnaude’s work is about the sublime and gender in relation to the sea. Patnaude uses the panorama, a nineteenth century form of mass media, (like Brauer’s wildly popular Instagram posts) to tell a powerful story, transporting the viewers to a world – literally ‘round the world – they may never otherwise experience. Together, Patnaude and Brauer integrate the feminine into this historically masculine seafaring space.

For Patnaude, it’s the fear of the unknowable, for Brauer, it’s conquering the unknowable, and for everyone watching it unfold in real time, it’s the spectacle.

Accompanying the panorama, is a chronological sequence of all the videos Brauer shared on Instagram during the race and a 100-foot paper scroll rendering of the artist’s sketchbook. While Brauer was at sea, Patnaude would watch her daily videos and converse with her via text, logging her journey week by week in an effort to inform her sketches for the painted panorama. The journal is comprised of conversations, observations, and notes from books about the sublime. 

Kelsy Patnaude both a professional yacht captain and practicing artist who lives in Newport, RI. Born in Worcester, MA she received her MFA at Lesley University College of Art & Design in 2019. Since graduating, Kelsy has shown in group and solo exhibitions up and down the East Coast from Gloucester, MA to Miami, FL. Her work explores the roles of gender and the sublime in the male-dominated sailing world – expressing her passion for empowering women through both her art and maritime career.