Kate Webster
About
On the Shelves of Memory (2022) is a series of ‘autotopographical’ enquiries, that incorporates objects of memory and recollection into an installation that explores the architecture of memory. The work examines the potential art has to be employed to process the associations and memories that are constructed in our minds from the early age of memory retention through the embodied experiences of material objects. Aiming to engage the material object as a means for memory recall and self-representation, the work considers the objects and spaces that comprise our everyday lives and the potential they hold to resurface memories that have been lost in the webs of our psyches.
Autotopographical representation of the self through an artistic practice engages space, materiality, and narrative to map an individual’s history through time just as a writer might through an autobiography. On the Shelves of Memory is a series of site-specific crochet webs with embedded objects of memory that expand, shrink and evolve dependant on the site of installation. The webs establish a visual framework of consciousness and the psyche that allows the artist to dissect her personal histories and the associations that make up the foundational architecture of her mind.
Bio
Kate Webster is an emerging contemporary visual artist and writer who lives and works on the traditional land of the Gadigal people, Sydney. Through her practice she explores the ways memory is mediated through materials and objects, and how the manipulation of these materials can provide artists with the ability to evoke emotional responses, and establish blurred relationships between themselves, the artwork, and the viewer.