Kate Kessling
My Paper Assemblages challenge conventional structures, subverting expectations and encouraging viewers to question familiar patterns, inviting a deeper engagement with everyday life.
Kate was born in the UK (1967), graduating with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Goldsmiths' College in the late 1980s. This was followed by an MA in Conceptual Textiles arranged by the British Council at the Poznan Academy of Art, Poland.
Kate has a diverse ouvre, with her 'Paper Assemblages' at Cube Gallery forming only part of her practice. Although varied in output, what remains a constant throughout her artistic career is her use of found objects as a route into 'mark-making' and a concern with the rhythm that objects create in repetition.
Kate's paper assemblages are plaster casts of reams of paper, each ream is from over a thousand leaves of stacked paper. Using a silicon mould, the object is hand-cast in plaster of Paris. Kate explains, "In the casting process, the paper loses its individual weight, texture and specificity to become a more ambitious artistic mark in the forming of a larger collective whole."
Each plaster object is subsequently coloured using a combination of coloured pigments, paints, and waxes that are applied in bands across the striated surface. In the creation of a larger 'collective whole', rich in texture and colouration and with the glimmer of occasional shine, unexpected meanings are generated. Kate says:
"I am questioning how we look and see the rhythm that objects create in repeat. I'm amazed at how finely tuned our sense of pattern and ability to see repeat pattern is, yet we can often miss the larger more obvious differences."
Kate has successfully displayed her work in British and international art galleries, as well as at art fairs in Europe, Asia, and the United States.
