It can be a bittersweet feeling when you see an idea that is so similar to your own manifested already by some other talented artist years ago. I've been imaging the twisting forms (zeitgeist moment) that Kate MccGwire has already created and I am so impressed at her execution. Much of her work is structured around the use of wishbones and feathers, using them in such high volume that their singularity as part of an animal is lost in the largess of the installation. Often spiraling, swallowing or falling in on itself pieces like
Wrest have a kinetic tension in them that sound like the ruffling and flapping of pigeons fighting over scraps in the street. The featureless masses also point to the deformities seen in pigeons in the city as well. Funny,
pigeons would come up again , I don't particularly feel that interested in them but maybe the fact that they are so ubiquitous it's hard not to see them referenced. MccGwire lives and works out of London so pigeons must be even more pervasive. I was surprised that she referred to them as,
'little more than pests living off detritus', as it would seem like a very conventional and myopic view of pigeons (or rock doves as they are also known as) rather than a more personal relationship born out of using their materials so often.
While the feathered pieces are definitely my favorite, the wishbone pieces are equally impressive but more for volume than form. Tens of thousands of wishbones each belonging to an individual animal in that volume makes any onlooker wonder about logistics. The piece
Brood, which debuted at her MA Royal College Sculpture show must have looked gorgeous with that beautiful shadowless skylight found in the RC's rooms.
Wrest | 2009
Illusion/Delusion | 2006
Vex | 2008
Brood | 2004
