Visit my other website showing live art/performance work - http://katehodges.com
http://www.greenpebble.co.uk/intheframenkingslynn.htm
In The
Frame: King's Lynn
By Will Teather
Green Pebble June/July 2010 issue
Kate Hodges/Elgie
An artist who takes an unusual approach to finding inspiration
from her surroundings is Kate Hodges. For her artworks in the exhibition she
collected pieces of wood which she came across and, by singeing marks onto
them, created intricate drawings and patterns. This process is both sympathetic
to the materials and tranformative of them, with her mark-making taking
inspiration from the grain of the wood to create compositions that seem to
reference both aboriginal art and art deco.
She describes her art as very
‘process led’, which seems the easiest way of linking her extremely diverse
practice. On the previous occasions that I have encountered Hodges' work it has
been in the form of conceptual installations and performances. Much as her wood
pieces respond to the natural form, her more avant-garde explorations tend to
be ‘site-responsive’ – created to enter into a dialogue with the environment in
which the piece is situated, be it a car park or a warehouse.
Hodges herself seems slightly
uncomfortable with the breadth of her practice, feeling that the craft element
in the wood patterns is almost a guilty pleasure, akin to her secret liking of
artists such as Andy Goldsworthy. In fact, she entered the artworks into the
Eastern Open under the pseudonym of Kate Elgie. She tells me that craft and a
formal consideration of beauty doesn't normally enter into her work; her
priority is more to help people see the world around them in a different way.
This is just before admitting that she is knitting a jumper whilst on the other
end of the phone: something she would never describe as art. I ask her why she
wouldn't consider using knitting in her work. After all, Tracey Emin makes
quilts and, whilst the likes of Jeff Koons might not make their own artworks,
Koons certainly makes sure that his assistants keep up high production
values.
Nonetheless, I take Hodges' point
that artists often end up sitting in a certain camp: one that is either more
craft-driven, ideas-driven, seeks beauty, or tries to challenge our
perceptions. She mentions a liking for James Turrell, a light artist whose
practice provides a good example of both thought-provoking and beautiful
contemporary art which often has an emotional effect on viewers.
If there really is a decision to be
made about which road she should go down, she doesn't need to make it just yet.
She is still early in her career as an artist, having initially used it as a
form of self-therapy after a stressful period working with the ambulance
service. Maybe the decision to create a pseudonym could work to
her advantage, giving her the freedom to explore both strands of her talent
independently, without fear of persecution from the art police.
