Kate MccGuire

'I gather, collate, re-use, layer, peel, burn, reveal, locate, question, duplicate, play and photograph'

When attempting to describe Kate MccGuire's beautiful work, I realised that there was no one better to talk about it than the artist herself. The following comes from her Artist Statement that can be found on her website.

'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.

She will take an everyday thing or idea that is intrinsically discomfiting and, by re-framing it, entice the viewer into re-examining their preconceptions and prejudices - cultural, historical, personal - about the everyday. The viewer's response is visceral, the impact immediate, the ideas triggered resonating in their mind somewhere beyond rational interpretation.

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.'