In Absolute Reproduktion, Kathryn Drysdale draws upon a body of stock magazine illustrations and photographs from the 1940's and 50's which she inherited from her father, a graphic artist and illustrator. By using primarily black and one colour, Kathryn recreates the visual style of magazine ads from that era. Her images evoke the hopes and dreams of these decades, which, when seen from our perspective years later, seem impossibly naive and fatally optimistic.

The subjects of the drawings are men who seem to be shaping the world with brash self confidence and an optimistic belief that they are in control of the world, the environment and the future. Smoking cigars, wearing well tailored suits, posing beside their factories or machines, these men, after enduring the economic hardship of the 30's and surviving the war, seem to be at the top of their games in the prosperous 50's. They are filled with an assurance that the world is improved by industry and the industriousness of men. The ideals of the American dream and the allure of a consumer-based society are reflected in portrayals of their prosperity, success and confidence. The title Absolute Reproduktion alludes to the industrialization of the manufacturing process which made it possible to mass produce consumer products. It also refers to conformity to an ideal, reinforced by advertising, of prosperity and security.

As a child, Kathryn spent many hours looking through her father’s collection of magazines and photographs that he drew upon for his artwork. Now, as the inspiration for Absolute Reproduktion they evoke feelings of nostalgia for a simpler time when there was unbounding optimism for the future, a time when it seemed that technology could provide a better, faster, cleaner way of life. Because we are seeing these images through the lens of our current time with a full awareness of what has evolved in the last fifty years, there is a poignancy in the simplicity and optimistic outlook that we see in these drawings.