Skip to main content

Interview with Kate Wilson

Kate Wilson is another artist whose work I found via social media. She is Canadian, and her work in drawing, installation, and animations caught my eye because of its authority and integrity, both in its purpose and in its execution. She is currently preparing for a busy summer of multiple exhibitions, so I'm gratified that she took the time to answers some questions about her work and process.



Geometric Sunshine (partial view) Beyond/In Western New York, 2007, 
acrylic on wall, dimensions variable, University at Buffalo Art Gallery at the 
Center for the Arts. Photo credit: Biff Henrich/Keystone.


Philip Hartigan: Your work looks like a collision between the organic world, chemistry diagrams, and classic abstract art. How does it appear to you?

Kate Wilson: Actually, your assessment is very close. I never know where to begin. It is a matter of placing pen to paper and seeing where the line takes me. Perhaps subconsciously I’m incorporating visuals or text that inspire: my current reading material, chemistry diagrams, botanical and architectural drawings, musical/ sound discoveries, celestial and natural phenomena.
 
Philip Hartigan: Have you always developed your work with installation in mind?

Kate Wilson: In 2005 I exhibited a multiple series of small drawings on paper at the Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris. During the opening of Canadian Club a museum director from Denmark suggested and encouraged me to scale up my drawings to room size proportions. The dramatic proportional shift in scale was something I contemplated doing for quite some time but the added impetus inspired me to seriously consider the reality of scaling up my work.
Collages in Motion and Artificial Dreams, ink on paper, study for a large-scale wall drawing, 27 x 35 cm, 2010. Collection: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Philip Hartigan: How important to your process is drawing?

Kate Wilson: Drawing is central to my process. It is a visual language, a lexicon, spontaneous, meditative, immediate, direct and based in imagination and memory. I am interested in the profile of line and I use line interchangeably as object and contour. I often refer to my preliminary drawings as small, contained architectures that serve to make the familiar visible and readable in an intentionally new way.
 
Philip Hartigan: How did your animations come about?

Kate Wilson: My animated films are an extension of my large-scale wall drawings. I intend to project my films on a large scale and create immersive animated visual environments.
  1. Curious Lights, ink on paper, 27 x 35 cm, 2011
Geometric Mechanics, ink on paper, 27 x 35 cm, 2012 

Philip Hartigan: What's the single most interesting thing about the creative process for you?

Kate Wilson: The moment of discovery, connecting lines, lines leading to lines, and accidental breakthroughs. The moment of discovery occurs when I lose myself in detail while simultaneously bringing out hidden architectural and botanical environments. I am especially interested in drawing as a continuing process of research – the construction of verbal and visual information systems.
 
Philip Hartigan: What's your next project?

Kate Wilson: I am preparing for Ecotopia a group exhibition at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, in Ontario, Canada. The curator commissioned a large-scale site-specific wall drawing. Also, I’m working on a second animated film titled A Primer of Small Stars. The film will include an excerpt of one of my sound compositions. I’m already thinking ahead and planning my next animated film based on a new series of geometric drawings
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Restoring my Printing Press

I've just finished restoring and assembling my large etching press -- a six week process involving lots of rust removal, scrubbing with steel wool, and repainting. Here is a photo of the same kind of press from the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative: And here is a short YouTube video of me testing the press, making sure the motor still works after nearly seven years of lying in storage:
Click here to read more

Brancusi in Plastic

Artist Mary Ellen Croteau is showing these columns made from recycled plastic cartons and lids in the window of the Columbia College bookstore on Michigan Avenue. They are a playful homage to Brancusi's "Endless Columns", with a serious environmental message for our times: Image copyright Inhabitat.com and Mary Ellen Croteau Mary Ellen also runs a wonderful experimental art gallery in a window space in west Chicago, called Art on Armitage . I will be exhibiting a mixed media piece there during August 2012.
Click here to read more

How to etch a linoleum block

Linoleum as a material for printmaking has been used for nearly a hundred years now. Normally, you cut an image out using special gouges similar to woodcut tools, cutting away the lino around the image you want to print. This is called relief printmaking, because if you look at the block from the side, the material that remains stands up in relief from the backing material. You then roll ink with a brayer over the surface of the block, place paper over it, and either print by hand or run it through a press. You can do complex things this way (for example, reduction linocuts), but the beauty of the process is that it is quick, simple, and direct. Incised lino block, from me.redith.com Etched lino block, from Steve Edwards A few years ago, I saw some prints that were classified as coming from etched linoleum blocks, and I loved the textures I saw in them. In the last few months, I've been trying to use this technique in my own studio, learning about it as one does these d...
Click here to read more