"I am interested in the interplay of opposites which runs like a leitmotif through everything I do"
Kate MccGwire is a London-based artist who spent her childhood growing up on the Norfolk Broads. MccGwire’s early memories of this distinct landscape, dominated by its wetlands, serpentine waterways and the wildlife that lives along the region’s waters, form the foundations of her practice, which is inspired by the cycles, patterns and dualities of nature.
Taking feathers as her primary medium, Kate MccGwire goes through labour-intensive processes of collecting, sorting and cleaning her materials to create muscular, writhing forms reminiscent of Classical sculpture and creatures from mythology. These abject structures explore dualities of aesthetics, being simultaneously seductive and repulsive; form, being simultaneously organic and abstract; and movement, appearing fluid yet being static. Through her practice, MccGwire celebrates feathers, which are commonly shed or discarded, as the medium through which she articulates enigmatic anatomies that explore physical and introspective space.