Kate MccGwire - what a truly accomplished and uniquely inspired British artist. There are few words sufficient to explain the quality, crafts(wo)manship and dualistic beauty of Kate’s exhibition, Quiver. Scott and I were lucky enough to be invited by Lakeside Arts to visit the exhibition when it opened on the 19th of September this year, and being the largest solo show Kate’s had to date and the first time she’s been able to show four installations together in a museum space, it exceeded our expectations. With Kate’s primary medium being bird feathers, many of the works seem as if they are almost alive. After asking Kate how she creates her sculptures like ‘DISCHARGE’, she answered that she would not tell us in order to maintain the mystery surrounding the sculpture. And this is just one aspect of what I think makes Kate’s work so captivating; its observer mostly marvels at just how she might have achieved such an effect. 

The curation of the exhibition, worked on by Kate alongside Lakeside’s Head of Visual Arts Neil Walker, was also magnificent. To quote Kate on her Instagram; “...each of them [the Quiver installations] began life as a commission, created specifically for a building or context,” Kate’s work again showcasing itself as something singular, and yet, the sculptures change as they are curated through each space. Pictured is what we felt was a particular showstopper - ‘DISCHARGE’ - a work that just is. It lives. 

Attending the exhibition of Quiver was truly a unique experience that left Scott and I feeling inspired about the intersection of nature and art. MccGuire's work features dualities that somehow translate the very essence of life in all its forms, blurring the lines between the human and animal worlds. Here is the interview!

Scott: Kate - we loved the exhibit. You seem to be drawn towards water and the flow of water. Tell us what came from your upbringing in Norfolk and explain where your connection to nature came from?

Kate: I was born in a boatyard in Norfolk surrounded by people making things. On weekends we would go out in boats, so I learnt to row, and my parents were very laissez-faire. You could just go in it, try it, and if you fell in the water it was never that deep, you know? So there was a lot of trial and error, but it was a very free childhood I suppose. At the weekends as a family we would go sailing and we were surrounded by beautiful reed birds and gorgeous, incredible birds, bitterns and swallowtail butterflies, really it was a fantastic nature reserve. The Broads exist with a sort of buffer of reedbeds around them, so there’s no road access apart from a few places. You get acres and acres of reedbeds with all this amazing wildlife, and then you get rivers. So it was very, very quiet - all you could hear was the sound of birds and the ripples of the water. I would see the eels being caught, and for me that was a very formative image of a writhing creature held with a man-made fork. 

The thing about water for me, which I learnt from experience and my parents telling me to be careful, is the pattern on the water. It’s there because there’s a current underneath. Those beautiful patterns can be completely treacherous and I love that sort of dichotomy between something that is gorgeous and perfect, there for a nanosecond, then gone. It’s also something that can drag you under the water if you were in it. I think it’s those two things that are in my work all the time, a slight sense of unease but also very beautiful. So all these things are imprinted on my brain and it’s my happy place being back there.

SLUICE, from thisiscolossal.com

Scott: Fantastic. My next question was about your work ‘SLUICE’. I found it quite interesting as it’s not quite like a natural flow of water, and it’s not quite the pattern of bird plumage either. So how do you find this ‘in-between’; how do you feel as you’re making that piece?

Kate: A lot of the structures I make I’m very much looking at the natural patterning and how the feathers would layer on the body of a bird, and I’m trying to emulate that. The pattern of ‘SLUICE’ is more about the pattern of water, rather than how plumage would be on a bird. And it’s an illustration of that I suppose. You can also change the swiftness of your patterning by using different feathers. So I use very, very thin feathers on the outer edges where I want it to look like it’s flowing faster. I sort the feathers into different categories of thinness and fatness, so it’s like a paint palette in the end. I’m “painting” with the feathers to make it look like the flow of water, if that makes sense.

Arabella: I would like to ask you a bit more about the duality concept with your dress and the writhing sculptures in the glass cylinders. They were almost feminine, commentaries on the body in a way; about seduction etcetera. Could you explain a bit more about that?

Kate: I think all of the work is seductive, whether it’s in the iridescence or the forms. Often I’ll make work without realising that it’s quite sexual. I’ll make a piece of work and stand away from it and go “Oh… okay” [laughing] and not realising that I’m doing it. There’s not many in the show that look like it, but there are some that really do. I also work very intuitively. I’ll sit and carve the work over a period of days solidly. Often at the end of it I won’t remember doing it. It’s a very meditative period of time so the form sort of comes out on its own? And I can do drawings like that in the sketchbooks but that is only ever one side. I can’t draw it in three dimensions, I’m having to make it up as I go along. I think ‘I want this side to look like this’, and I’m working with a block, and then I turn it around and think, ‘well, that has to continue going around there,’ [gesturing with hands]. So it evolves when I’m making it. Often the work is feminine, and often the work is reminiscent of the curves of the body. I do want them to be sensual, often sexual, but I don’t mind. I’m happy to go with that. 

Arabella: But these works are meant to, would you say, have more than one meaning?

Kate: Yes, exactly - it’s a push and pull. I want you to be attracted to it, lured to it, and then go “Oh, I’m not really sure about that.” Yesterday, two ladies from here came into the gallery on different occasions. One looked at a piece and thought “Eugh! I don’t like that,” and another person came and went “Oh, that’s really interesting”. It was the same piece of work, and they had completely different reactions to it. So, I want you to bring your own language, your own memories, your own imagination; I want you to bring your experiences with birds to the work and respond to it. I think of it as being a generous work that leads you into a narrative yourself. 

Arabella: That’s beautiful. How about your career? How do you think your work, style and form has changed over that time, or has it not?

Kate: I think it’s always had the essence of collecting and using natural materials and an element of border and patterning with it. But the forms have changed radically. When I first started after my degree, everything was quite flat. I am actually completely led by the material. I find something that’s curved and I make something that’s more curved. I’m led by that into other things. I’m thinking ‘How I could use that feather?’; how to move it forward. I keep thinking I’ll work in different materials, but I actually haven’t quite finished working with the feathers because they’re so miraculous. There’s a weed called Himalayan Balsam which is really bad on the river where we are, but it has the most phenomenal root. It looks like a hand. It’s like a child’s drawing of a root, the stem of the weed which is slightly pink towards the base and then it’s got these tentacles coming out of them. It’s the most peculiar thing. And it grasps [Kate bangs the table] onto the rocks and mud. They’re fascinating, and I want to do something with them because they’re such a phenomenal shape. Very unlike any other weed, a bit like the Baobab, upside down. Have you seen those tiny little feathers that you find on a Jay with the stripes? Those ones are slightly awkward to show because they need light. I don’t understand it - it’s astounding. 

Arabella: I actually do have one more question! [Laughing] - why did you choose feathers as your primary medium?

Kate: Well, when I first had my studio, the Dutch barge on a dilapidated island, I walked down to the studio and there were pigeon feathers in the shed next door. That then just turned into my medium. Having been interested in hair and bones and teeth (natural bodily materials), it was a progression, really.          

A huge thanks to Kate MccGuire for her time, and a special thanks to Amy Steels and Neil Walker at Lakeside Arts for their hospitality, organisation and expertise whilst we were visiting.