Artists I Like: Kate MccGuire
I want one of these for my living room:
Heave, 2008
I don’t even remember where I stumbled upon the art of Kate MccGuire, but I love it ferociously. Combining the beautiful into the horrific, the horrific into the beautiful, it is stunning work. Organic, monstrous, sublime, alien, domestic, unconscious, confrontational, and bodily. How could I not love it? Reading about it and looking at it fills me with a thousand thoughts, a thousand flashes of inspiration, and a million pounds of awe.
And I'll take one of these for my family room:
Sluice, 2009
From her Artist’s statement:Kate MccGwire's work asks questions about the very nature of beauty. She's intrigued by the possibility of envisaging beauty as something more complex than merely what delights the senses: beauty can be about a problem; it can be something that repels you or makes you question the status quo. The idea that it is a cultural phenomenon, susceptible to argument through the creative process, fascinates her . . .
Organic patterns, forms and materials have an instinctive draw; work may look determinedly abstract to the naked eye, but by using a spiral or circle, or a familiar material, the viewer's gaze is lured inward, as if into a 'field of attraction', only to be repulsed or even menaced by the associations that unfold once 'inside'. At the same time the scale and delicacy of the work reinforce the potential for awe and beauty in the unconventional.
And one for the kitchen . . .
Evacuate, 2010
Heave, 2008
I don’t even remember where I stumbled upon the art of Kate MccGuire, but I love it ferociously. Combining the beautiful into the horrific, the horrific into the beautiful, it is stunning work. Organic, monstrous, sublime, alien, domestic, unconscious, confrontational, and bodily. How could I not love it? Reading about it and looking at it fills me with a thousand thoughts, a thousand flashes of inspiration, and a million pounds of awe.
And I'll take one of these for my family room:
Sluice, 2009
From her Artist’s statement:Kate MccGwire's work asks questions about the very nature of beauty. She's intrigued by the possibility of envisaging beauty as something more complex than merely what delights the senses: beauty can be about a problem; it can be something that repels you or makes you question the status quo. The idea that it is a cultural phenomenon, susceptible to argument through the creative process, fascinates her . . .
Organic patterns, forms and materials have an instinctive draw; work may look determinedly abstract to the naked eye, but by using a spiral or circle, or a familiar material, the viewer's gaze is lured inward, as if into a 'field of attraction', only to be repulsed or even menaced by the associations that unfold once 'inside'. At the same time the scale and delicacy of the work reinforce the potential for awe and beauty in the unconventional.
And one for the kitchen . . .
Evacuate, 2010