Kathryn Maguire
About
My primary medium is sculpture and over the last seven years I have researched the impact of mining locations of minerals and metals and their histories. I am interested in the levels of minerals within our bodies, this is the geological body, and how we use geology as technology. I am fascinated by the elements used in our daily life, by the rocks we carry and are so dependent on
(i.e. phones). There is 24.88% silicon in a smartphone. Metals make up only 2.5% of the mass of a human body.
Recent works were about air pollution and how iron oxides and magnetite particles are being released into the air and building up as toxins in people, creating various illness. I am now researching materials used in daily technology and green energy such as copper and lead, cobalt, nickel and lithium.
We are lithic bodies performing rocks.
The above quote is from a new text based work and meditation in places of over mining and extraction. How can we repair wounded landscapes? I have been performing some acts in wounded landscapes or disused mines across the UK and Ireland. I am using acupuncture needles and copper earthing fabric, this is slowly evolving as a poetic film.
How can we reinterpret these punctured landscapes?
Could they be places of poetry, agoras, and sculpture parks?
Creating the Eco Crit Group with fellow RCA students introduced radical new eco and environmental thinkers and curators into our practices and thinking.
A number of key books have informed my thinking and direction: A geology of media by Jussa Parikka and Extraction to Extinction by David also Stone and ecology of the inhuman by Jeffrey Cohen, this particular book is resonant with my new departure into 'lithics'.
Joining Stone Club has allowed me find a kinship in Stone, https://stoneclub.rocks/
Degree Details
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Statement
Kathryn Maguire is an Artist and freelance artist educator and curator.
Kathryn Maguire works in London. She holds a Masters in Sculpture in Royal College of Art, London. She holds a BA in Fine Art Sculpture from CCAD, Ireland and MA in Art in the Contemporary World from NCAD, Ireland. Her practice engages text, sculpture, video, installation; making diverse cultural references linking past with contemporary; seeking to highlight potentiality in historic moments. Increasingly, her work engages processes of making, informed by her earlier training as jewellery-maker and sculptor.
Current practice engages questions arising in the Greek Philosophers and an understanding of materials as means to both artistic production and revealing of laws in the Physical World. Using performance as ‘survey/workshop/lab’ a connection between artist and scientist is explored; creating and presenting demonstrative elements in the gallery and the field. Often an expert is involved, a source of knowledge rooted in real scientific phenomena. Attempts to reveal fundamental and invisible forces and energies, explored by scientists and experts alike, is central to Maguire’s practice.
Residencies include: Groundwork Residency, Norfolk, UK. London Metallomics Facility, Artist in Residence, Kings College/ Imperial College, London, UK. The Magnetism Group, Artist in Residence (R&D), CRANN, Trinity College Dublin, 2020. Rathfarnham Educate Together National School, Artist in Residence 2019-2020. Fish Factory, East Iceland, funded by Arts Council/DLR Council, 2019. Sim House, Reykjavik, Iceland, 2018/2014.
Awards : Design Education Trust - 4D Project Awards, RCA,UK 2022. Arts Council Bursary 2021. Arts Council Travel & Training Award 2019. DLR CoCo Creative Bursary 2019. DLR Co Co Artists Bursary 2016. Arts Council Artist in the Community Award 2016. Firestation Studios Sculpture Bursary Award 2016.
Chrysocolla Dreams / Liquid Landscape
Liquid Landscapes Series 2022
These floor-based landscapes will embody the viewer, offering possibility and futurity. Their height offers a ‘coming down to Earth’ scale, a hovering-over-the-Earth sense. The silica landscapes are teleological, informing their viewer of a sense of floating, adapting, flowing with tides of change. Inspired by disappearing snow on Icelandic mountains, they are also a homage to Smithson’s Mirror works.
Liquid Landscapes
How it was created. The MTR structure was taken to 3D modelling, and was scanned. It was then taken to CNC and made into its next iteration, It was spliced using Rhino and the reading was used for both the mirror and the MDF stacks. This contour shape has become a repeat pattern, and through repetition, a motif throughout my work, being interpretated in many materials.
Medium: MDF & recycled Mirror
Size: 27 cm height 42 cm length 29 cm width
In Collaboration with:
- Photographer
Thomas Jenkins documented the show Earthly Bodies curated by Clare Stent.
MTR Mountain Top Removal
MTR
means Mountain Top Removal which is a abhorrent way of mining in some locations, to literally remove a Mountain top to access the minerals and metals on the sub surface.
To create the work took many processes and many, and various, great technicians in the RCA advised me throughout the process. First, a 12-layerdeep MDF structure called Strata, was created and then lacquered and then in Future Materials, a silicon rubber mould was taken from this structure.
The two Jesmonite Underground Potential works exhibited at Battersea studio 11, works were taken from this mould, using pigments and natural lead effect and copper
Medium: MDF
Size: 27 cm height 42 cm length 29 cm width
In Collaboration with:
- Photographer
Thomas Jenkins
Strata
Strata was inspired by and modeled on the biggest and deepest mine/ quarry that is the Mir Mine in Russia.
To create the work took many processes and many, and various, great technicians in the RCA advised me throughout the process. First, a 12-layerdeep MDF structure was formed called Strata, this was then lacquered, and then in Future Materials, a silicon rubber mould was taken from this structure.
The two Jesmonite Underground Potential works in the physical degree show were taken from this mould, using pigments and natural lead effect and copper
I decided I would also stack all the MDF I had taken out from this original structure to create another Mountainous-type structure called MTR. This stands for Mountain Top Removal; measuring 27 cm height, 42 cm length, 29 cm width.
Big thanks to Future Materials and all the Wood Technicians magicians.
Soil is a Memory of the Land
Throughout the year I furthered my research of geology and travelled to abandoned mines and quarries in Ireland and the UK. This was an extension of my geological research that is at the heart of my practice.
I began to look at minerals and metals and our dependence to them. I was reading a lot about the incoming Carbon neutral 2030, where we will all drive electric cars and use no fossil fuels.
Breathing
N99 breathing mask electroformed in copper. Serpentine stone from The Lizard, Cornwall carved by Katharina Dettar.
This work is informed by my ongoing residency with London Metallomics Facility.
https://researchfeatures.com/elusive-roles-metals-human-health/
Medium: Copper and carved Serpentine
Size: 15cm x 7cm
In Collaboration with:
- Katharina Dettar
Katharina Dettar carved the stunning Serpentine stone into a valve for the mask.
Monte Corona Underworld
I want to reclaim the word Corona
This is a Crown for the Underworld. Inspired by a trip to Monte Corona in Lanzarote. The stunning green is similar to the local volcanic glass called Olivine.
Big thank you to Pete Musson in Jewellery and Liam Reeves in Glass.
Medium: Green blown Glasswork, copper dendrites
Size: 17cm x 15cm
Magnes
Shoes for Magnes.
'Magnet' is derived from the legend of Magnes, or from the territory of Magnesia. Pliny states that Magnes, the shepherd, discovered it, and the legend told of him is that while carrying a message over Mount Ida he felt his feet clinging to the earth, to the iron ore which lay thickly upon the hill. Hence the name of the Magnet.
Rock Mountain series
An incredible rock was gifted to me by poet Sean Borodale. This powerful Quartz form looked like a Mountain.
I have taken a silicon mould of this form and plan to make a Materials Library of new Materials. The most exciting one is the Tree Resin.
This Tree Rock shall be on display in Ground Work Gallery in Norfolk. https://www.groundworkgallery.com/ part of my future residency in August 2022.
Lithic Bodies
We are lithic bodies performing rocks.
Inspired by science.
Medium: Acrylic mirror necklaces
Size: 10cm
Sponsors
Design Education Trust - 4D Project Awards
I was honored to receive this award. It supported me in creating One Inch to the Mile, on exhibit in the physical show in Battersea, allowing me to create a haptic event in my artwork. Thanks to all in Metal work and Wood for problem solving and structural support. Thank you to Panayiotis Delilabros in Physical Computing for all your help and knowledge.
Website: http://designeducationtrust.org.uk/