AUTHOR: Kate Scardifield
TRACING SOFT FOLDS AND SHIFTING STATES Australia
— KATE SCARDIFIELD — My engagement with textiles began with an interest in the body’s relationship to cloth and thinking about fabric as a substitute for skin. Informed by concepts around materials and the knowledge they convey, I actively seek out and employ a range of material languages. Recently, this has included casts of my own severed fingers in bronze and adaptable, modular sculptures made from turned timber, acrylic and coiled thread spools. Although my approach to art-making is broad and varied, whatever I am working on is always channelled through three key modes of enquiry: research, conceptual thinking and material investigation. The exhibition When moving through ruins comprises a series of interconnected and relational forms that span sculpture, installation, textiles and video. This project was developed for exhibition at the Glasshouse Regional Art Gallery in Port Macquarie, New South Wales, following on from a residency there in July 2016. However, the work was 18 months in the making and originally conceived during field research and residency programs undertaken in Seville, Spain and Oaxaca, Mexico. Polyrhythm I – V, 2014/15. From the series Patterns for Penance, turned timber, oak dowel, coiled thread spools, acrylic. Dimensions variable. Photo: Matthew Venables. Courtesy the artist and ALASKA Projects Subscribers get a free newsletter every issue, filled with exhibitions and calls for entries
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