Kate Shooter
Your Face Or The Moon
Kate Shooter | Your Face Or The Moon
14th September - 9th November 2024
“Painting for me is an act of blind faith. The endless erasing of pitfalls clarified by cliches and alluring noise, to find the thing I don’t know but instinctively recognise all the same. The process is like an archaeological dig in this way - holding my nerve through the dirt and the dust and shiny distracting trinkets until ‘the thing’ is found. I’m searching for the small surprise happenings, the good mistakes, the combined power of ALL the mistakes that lead to the final incarnation. It is a perversely agonising, but necessary stumble through wrongness to find an imperfect rightness.”
“So on the big level and on the little level and every level in-between, the slippage between control and finesse and form and wanting it to be good and constantly adjusting things and between first thought, best thought, let it all hang out, do a thing, see what you’re surprised by… That tension is the tension of me making my work.” (Amy Sillman excerpt from Art21 interview).
Kate Shooter, July 2024
About Kate Shooter
Kate Shooter studied Fine Art at Howard Gardens Art School in Cardiff and then Wimbledon School of Art in London. Her practice is based in South Wales where she paints in her home studio in the Black Mountains.
Kate is one of Irving Gallery’s Gallery Artists and has been exhibiting with the gallery since our inaugural exhibition in November 2019.
Kate has recorded voice notes about some of the paintings in the exhibition, which you can listen to below, or read the transcript.
Click on any image below for more information, and to purchase online.
“When I began painting ‘Song for Blue’ I was thinking about repeating pattern. How sometimes we see patterns in the most innocuous of things around us; that human compulsion to make sense of things through finding repeats. The decision to create a strong outline and dark background was very last minute, but I realised that by containing all the shifting colour and pattern I’d somehow created a safe space within the confines of the canvas for it to happen. I like playing with borders in this way… the border of the canvas itself no longer functions as the edges… the boat like shape creating a sense of drama adrift at sea. I felt strongly that what was contained within the shape was sound, music even and that prompted the title. My eldest son is called Blue - he bobs in and out of the studio sometimes and particularly during the making of this work had something wise and surprising to say. The work is an ode to him I guess.”
‘Song For Blue’
Acrylic, wax pastel, oil stick and house paint on linen
60 x 80 x 5 cm
Unframed
£2200
‘Come Down Softly’
Acrylic, wax pastel, oil stick and spray paint on linen
84 x 48 x 5.5 cm
Tray framed in white stained obeche
Sold
“The title of this painting comes from an old Spacemen 3 tune which I listened to obsessively as a teenager. It’s so tender and yet so undone somehow, like it sort of teeters on the brink of being terrible, but is also very loveable. It popped into my head while I was working on this and never left really. There is something in the awkward just off framing of the shapes - like bad photo composition; their not solid scribbly floatiness and the suggestion of pattern across the top shape unravelling and coming apart, sort of un-decorating itself. All of this reminded me of the track. Funnily enough, when I looked the tune up later I realised it was actually titled ‘Come Down Easy’ and when I listened to it for real I also realised that I had sort of merged the melody and pace of it in my head with another Spacemen 3 track “So Hot’ which is much slower; It felt quite jarring to hear the tune as upbeat as it was. BUT I kind of love how memory is an unreliable resource and endlessly inventive as a result.”
‘These Ghosts, Like Something Poured’
Acrylic and wax pastel on wood panel.
49 x 49 x 5.5 cm
Tray framed in white stained obeche
£1100
“Objects in the work are usually a stand in for body whether they are vessel or house or in this case a sort of cosmic rainbow in the dark. The muted repeat of the shape in the bottom half made me think of how painting literal reflections can function as reflecting by looking back - as nostalgia. Memories are like ghosts contained in us. I often think of memory as being like a liquid thing - how sometimes they rush into our consciousness expanding to fill the present in a visceral fluid way.”
‘Green Fingers, Damp Heart’
Acrylic and wax pastel on linen
64 x 44 x 5.5 cm
Tray framed in white stained obeche
£1300
“It’s lovely that phrase ‘green fingered’ isn’t it? I like imagining someone literally with green mossy finger tips, extending out from a heavy with water heart root ball. The idea of ‘damp hearted’ makes me think of someone who is easily moved - who cares deeply, like somehow that would make them better at growing things. This painting makes me think of my mum.”
‘Pilgrim (Spare Rib)’
Acrylic, oil stick and wax pastel on wood panel
51 x 38 x 5.5 cm
Tray framed in white stained obeche
Not available
“The surface of this painting was originally very busy and I kind of whittled it down instinctively using white acrylic. I often work like this - fiercely editing in the final stage with either a strong light or dark pigment to blot out all the unnecessary crap. The remaining composition is reminiscent of the body which is a continual theme in my practice and I was thinking how it reminded me of a series of psychedelic X-ray like works I made last year. The female body has long been exploited as object in Art, but I like to think of myself as both painter and muse - the process of making a work is like a journey to subject as a sacred space.”
‘Promise (Rose Tinted)’
Acrylic and wax pastel on wood panel
49 x 49 x 4 cm
Tray framed in dark green painted obeche
£1000
‘Copse (Mother)’
Acrylic and wax pastel on wood panel
49 x 49 x 4 cm
Tray framed in dark green painted obeche
£1000
‘Offering’
Acrylic and wax pastel on wood panel
51 x 27 x 3 cm
Tray framed in dark green painted obeche
£850
‘Prayer’
Acrylic and wax pastel on wood panel
43 x 33 x 5.5 cm
Tray framed in white stained obeche
Not available
“Although in the making of Prayer there was no narrative or image in mind I was feeling in quite a hopeless place at the time with various goings on in the world. The work though tiny has to my mind an altar like quality, like a sort of holy portal I thought, which I find immensely comforting. This religious narrative seems to appear in my work often when I’m feeling a bit lost. I’m not in the least bit religious, but painting does that I find… becomes a subconscious salve for what ails me..”
‘Head (Of A 50 Year Old Woman)’
Acrylic, oil stick, spray paint and wax pastel on wood panel
50 x 44 x 5.5 cm
Tray framed in white stained obeche
£1000
‘Thick and Skin’
Acrylic and wax pastel on wood panel
49 x 49 x 4 cm
Tray framed in dark green painted obeche
£1000
‘Copse (Study)’
Acrylic and wax pastel on 300 gsm paper cut-out
25 x 37 x 4.5 cm
White stained tulip wood box frame, museum glass
£500
‘Mountain Man’
Acrylic and wax pastel on 300 gsm paper cut-out
44 x 47 x 4.5 cm
White stained tulip wood box frame, museum glass
Not available
“Faces have a way of making an appearance in my work occasionally; when things are getting a bit earnest, or the painting is becoming a bit too pleased with itself, I have a strong compulsion to pick up a spray can and give it a garish face. Usually the act is enough to loosen up and move in a different direction with the work, but sometimes like in the case of ‘Head’ I become attached to the face and it stays. This work was originally morphing into a tree and I still see ‘tree’ when I look at it now because it featured so prominently in the process. A 50 year old female tree.”
‘Pink Tip, Passing Cloud’
Acrylic and wax pastel on 300 gsm paper
54 x 42 x 4.5 cm
White stained tulip wood box frame, museum glass
£700
‘Sad Monkey’
Acrylic and wax pastel on gessoed card
48 x 38 x 4.5 cm
White stained tulip wood box frame, museum glass
£700
‘Bed 1 (My Sadness Is Cosmic)’
Acrylic, house paint, and wax pastel on gessoed card
39 x 34 x 4.5 cm
White stained tulip wood box frame, museum glass
£500
‘Bed 2 (My Sadness Is Cosmic)’
Acrylic, house paint, and wax pastel on gessoed card
37 x 29.5 x 4.5 cm
White stained tulip wood box frame, museum glass
£500
‘Your Face Or The Moon’
Acrylic and wax pastel on wood panel
48 x 41 x 5.5 cm
Tray framed in lilac painted obeche
£1100
“I’m aware there is often a dividing line present in my painting. Rarely in the sense of horizon - they aren’t landscapes, but more as a point of tension where contrasts meet. ‘Your Face or The Moon feels like a body of water reflecting a moon-like face. The area above almost empty with just a hint of what could be reflecting below. That counterpoint of tension is what gives the work energy and this is also present in the palette - lilacs contrasting with the vivid spring green…. It felt natural to continue the potency of the palette contrast into the framing. The whole work seems to be riffing on dualities - colour, tension of halves; even the title speaks of cosmic versus personal, poignant versus comedic, empty versus full. Painting seems to be the sweet spot between all these supposed opposites.”
‘Whale Tale’
Acrylic, wax pastel, oil stick, spray paint and paper on wood panel
53 x 40 x 5.5 cm
Tray framed in mint/blue painted obeche
£1100
‘My Body Is A Bingo Hall’
Acrylic, wax pastel, oil stick, spray paint and paper on wood panel
53 x 40 x 5.5 cm
Tray framed in mint/blue painted obeche
£1100
All works are available to purchase. For all enquiries, contact Vanessa Lacey.
vanessa@irvinggallery.com
t. 07969 673349