Crossings Gallery
Coming Soon: Diary of an Automatist
artist: Kate Audet
What does your unconscious mind look like? Diary of an Automatist offers a glimpse into the intriguing inner landscape of artist Kate Audet through digital collage. Drawing on dreams, psychology, pop culture, and art history, Audet combines photographs and unexpected images to create surreal, riddles of symbols that are mysterious, funny, unsettling, and paradoxical. Working intuitively, they transform recognizable images into surprising new worlds—inviting viewers to look twice, make connections, and wonder what might be hiding beneath the surface of the psyche.
Kate Audet is a Brighton-based self-taught surrealist photomontage artist with a degree in Psychology.
Artist Statement
I utilize surrealist photomontage to uncover my own unconscious psyche. My inner reality has always been deeply visual and paradoxical. As such, communicating my inner states has often been difficult, not only to others, but to myself. My art work allows my unconscious mind to communicate with me through disparate images brought together by intuition, not conscious thought.
The unconscious does not speak in words, but in images. To access this language, I use the practice of Automatism–making art without accessing the conscious mind–to allow the unconscious to take the wheel. I flip through thousands of images till my unconscious picks the right ones and forms them into a shape that feels correct. The results are an image of my inner reality communicated in a riddle of symbols. These symbols can come from archetypes inherent to the human condition, as well as pop cultural iconography.
With this visual language of the art, I am able to communicate complex and often opposing ideas in a succinct way, to have a language for my inner workings. This allows my inner world to become discoverable not only to me but to you the viewer. I hope through these universal symbols to reveal myself or as David Byrne said “…now I’m going to bring me to you.”
Photograph by: Gabriella Melchiorri
Artist Biography
Kate Audet (they/them) is a self-taught surrealist photomontage artist working with archetypes from the collective unconscious and pop cultural iconography. With a degree in Psychology, Audet’s work focuses on the human psyche, primarily their own. By day, they can be found slinging coffee at linger in Brighton at the Charles Speedway. By night, they can be found in their studio dreaming.
Glossary
A 1920s art movement that took dreams as seriously as reality.
The part of your mind that works without your awareness.
Making art by instinct instead of planning.
The whole mind, including both conscious and unconscious thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
A symbol people everywhere recognize, like the Hero, the Mother, or the Trickster.
A picture the artist didn't make, given new meaning in a new setting.
About Crossings Gallery
The Crossings Gallery showcases work by contemporary Allston-Brighton, Harvard, and Boston artists, complemented by artist talks, panel discussions, and interactive workshops. Open during Harvard Ed Portal hours, the gallery also features street-facing exhibitions for public viewing anytime.
Previous Exhibitions:
I AM by Miles Perry
Seeds of Home by Tashi Haig
Teen Art Program
2026 Harvard Staff Art Show
Rethreaded: Transforming Cloth by Maria Cuneo
Plankton Paintings: Footprints of the Invisible by Jess Holz
Reaching through Fog: Opaque Paintings by Yi Cynthia Chen
Familiar Faces| Living Spaces by Hugo Nakashima-Brown