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Sculpturesite Gallery is pleased to present One, a solo exhibition of life-size figurative sculpture in terracotta and hydro-stone by Kathy Venter. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, September 27th, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm, and the show runs through November 24th. The artist will be in attendance.
South African born sculptor Kathy Venter, who now makes her home in Canada, will exhibit four full-sized figures and three torsos. For this series, titled One, she chose as the subject a single model, a young woman who has lived in the same small community for many years and has become part of the artist’s physical environment. The resulting sculptures are direct and engaging representations of the model in various poses, the absence of clothing adding an intimacy between the artwork and viewer.
Venter’s sculptures are hand built in the extended pinch method, similar to techniques used in freehand coil and pinch ceramic vessels. Venter builds the works approximately fifteen percent larger than life size, to allow for the shrinkage of the clay during the drying and high temperature firing process. No molding or life casting is used to create the forms.
Polychrome layers of hydro-stone (a cement-like plaster) and clay engobes are applied after firing. The artist then sandblasts each sculpture at high pressure to produce earthy surfaces resembling cooled lava or sedimentary rock, giving the classical form a truly contemporary aspect. Yet it was the surface of the Tanagra figures of the Mycenean period that inspired the artist to use this unusual application. Encrusted and worn from centuries of burial, the figures still revealed the detailed clay body underneath, and looked to be shedding a skin.
In Here and Here, we see the model seated in a wooden chair, staring directly ahead. An unexpected clump of textured, yellow pigmented white hydro-stone clings to her shoulder, as if she has just immerged from a pool of quicksand, the smooth terracotta revealing itself, waiting to be washed clean.
Kathy Venter received her MFA in sculpture from Port Elizabeth School of Art and Design, South Africa. Her work can be found in public and private collections throughout Canada, the US and abroad, including the South African National Gallery, Pretoria, Ceramics Museum Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic, and the Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA.
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