Kate Clark
Not considering the elusive technique used in crafting her mangy and patched creatures, Kate Clark has endued with static life beings embodying what may be the end result of humanity's fate according to Darwin -- the physical dominance of mankind's beastly nature capped by his face fraught with disbelief at what natural selection has dealt him.
The sculptures beg the question: What is the relationship between man and beast? In all but contemporary thought, nature was the feared and man was its victim. However, we are now the aggressors as a species, destroying habitats and forsaking ecosystems by virtue of the mere spread of civilization. Perhaps Clark is then, in turn, telling a different story. One of the sensitivity and awareness of animal -- hinting, through the carefully rendered and intense gazes, that the so called "beasts" of Earth are more "human" than Homo sapiens themselves, being the present day martyrs of man's latest communal crime -- the comprehensive usurping of our stead. The feared or disrespected beasts of old are now the victims of the broken pact of symbiosis, and thus in Clark's sculptures a face of humanity is shown on the taxidermied and sacrificial body of our fellow mammals.
In terms of their finish and in spite of their moral inferences, Kate Clark's creations wear girlish stylings of glamorous, glittery embroidery around the stitches of the patched faces. In doing so, the sculptures venture deeply into the grotesque, a feature that Thomas Mann posits is the "most genuine style" of the modern. If so, it is the formative style of the contemporary and Clark's pieces make efficient use of it.
For more viewing visit: http://www.kateclark.com .
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