Kate Newby
I could feel it in the air
2019
Sandstone, glass
34.5 x 13.2 x 6.8 cm
Cardboard box, interior 37 x 24 x 16 cm
Multiple in 10 copies, realized in May 2019,
Produced by the Friends of the IAC, Villeurbanne / Rhône-Alpes
Public price: 1,200 euros
Friends price: 700 euros
The edition I could feel it in the air produced by Kate Newby consists in 12 tiles with glass incrustations, every single one being slightly different from one another. Since her project for the Kunsthalle Wien in 2018, it’s the second time that her work leads her to the object of the tile – after having work with the brick for some time- implying the idea of creating her own object, in a less industrial process.
This edition is realised at the occasion of her solo project at IAC in 2019. Inspired by the omnipresence of this element of construction in the Institut’s neighbourhood, as well as the area of Lyon where she met different craftsmen, the artist intervenes on the outside of the building (patio, the low wall of the garden) and extends the relation to the frame with the production of a limited series of tiles to be hung on the wall.
In this same connivance between space and exhibition, the artist has incrusted in the sandstone tile some small pieces of coloured glass, collected in the surrounding environment. She also marked it with fingers traces, with a gesture of manual digging recurring in her work. After a high temperature cooking (1250°) at a specialised craftman’s workshop, each tile becomes an object quasi-unique that has settled this alloy of material and gesture. The enclosure of glass in the sandstone, then the metamorphism of contact generated by the heat, produce an object rough and refined at the same time.
Its with the term « coronation » that the artist underlines the beauty of tiles in a building, destined to a protection and ornamental purpose.
This edition of tiles is significant of Kate Newby’s approach that emphasizes production by hand following a traditional savoir-faire, without aiming for technical performances. Perfection is not sought, but the energy of transformation of materials and gestures, as well as the combined symbolic of notions like excavation or protection. Attentive to every single details of construction from places and their local specificities, Kate Newby tends to log her hand in every step of a process up to the print on the object itself. From this spontaneous doing, she shapes her own interpretation of the object tile.
This edition is realised at the occasion of her solo project at IAC in 2019. Inspired by the omnipresence of this element of construction in the Institut’s neighbourhood, as well as the area of Lyon where she met different craftsmen, the artist intervenes on the outside of the building (patio, the low wall of the garden) and extends the relation to the frame with the production of a limited series of tiles to be hung on the wall.
In this same connivance between space and exhibition, the artist has incrusted in the sandstone tile some small pieces of coloured glass, collected in the surrounding environment. She also marked it with fingers traces, with a gesture of manual digging recurring in her work. After a high temperature cooking (1250°) at a specialised craftman’s workshop, each tile becomes an object quasi-unique that has settled this alloy of material and gesture. The enclosure of glass in the sandstone, then the metamorphism of contact generated by the heat, produce an object rough and refined at the same time.
Its with the term « coronation » that the artist underlines the beauty of tiles in a building, destined to a protection and ornamental purpose.
This edition of tiles is significant of Kate Newby’s approach that emphasizes production by hand following a traditional savoir-faire, without aiming for technical performances. Perfection is not sought, but the energy of transformation of materials and gestures, as well as the combined symbolic of notions like excavation or protection. Attentive to every single details of construction from places and their local specificities, Kate Newby tends to log her hand in every step of a process up to the print on the object itself. From this spontaneous doing, she shapes her own interpretation of the object tile.
