A personal statement from Kate Crook
An important foundation to this recent work was an earlier charcoal drawing; a large format work using erasure to denote the figures in a version of 'Massacre of the Innocents by Rubens' (1611-12). Transcribing this work I borrowed images from 18th century Japanese woodblock prints by Hokusai and Utamaro. I drew these figures freehand and placed them on boards that had a highly finished smooth surface. The bodies were enveloped with fabric allowing the the limbs and body parts to be exposed, these transmuted into a kaleiderscope of abstracted patterns. The kitch pearlised pigment allows the figures to appear and dissappear, reflecting the clandestine nature of the subject.
My parallel body of work is a series of etchings inspired from large facetted rocks on the coast in Cornwall. The refracted light on the rocks created prisms of light and dark, which lead me to a fascination with cut glass and stones and the shapes within those facetted surfaces, suggesting constellations of stars and planets: Observing light moving over these exquisite details defines sensuality and the female erotic. In both of these bodies of work I have sought the abstacted patterns that appear when light plays on a surface.....Out of the darkness cometh light. |
