KATHARINE WEST: PLAYTHINGS/GALWAY ARTS CENTRE, GALWAY

摘要

Katharine West has playfully scattered her objects around the gallery floor, in a manner reminiscent of a child's room after a day's activity of research, investigation and exploration. These pieces are asking to be re-examined, for their simplicity beguiles the maturity of their process. Purity of form, seen through new eyes, is not an easy thing to achieve, yet Katharine West has done just that. Playthings combines established concerns in her work such as fluidity, interior/exterior relationships and surface tension with an appropriation of new subject matter. West seems to be linking historical and cultural memory, based on archetypal forms - implements are suggested, as well as how these objects relate to the body. This 'visceral' element, she says, is as a result of a visit to the Museum of Medical History in Paris. 'What caught my attention was the correlation between some of the medical equipment on display -specifically dishes used for bleeding people, which were beautiful archetypes in terms of the bowl and the dish - and their convergent relationship with the body in terms of form and function'.