Kate Buckley is an artist based in Boston, Lincolnshire.She is a member of the Lincoln based artist group General Practice, a founding a member of Dug and The House Collective. Participating in a wide range of projects curating and exhibiting in Lincoln, Sheffield, Nottingham, London and Palma, she has collaborated with a broad range of practitioners and academics including Professor Steve Dutton for the ongoing End of Ends project and Possession for the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC). She has also co-curated a number of exhibitions with the artist and curator Andrew Bracey. She is also part of a curatorial team for Slumgothic at X-Church, Gainsborough.
Describe your practice for us:
“Information is the least of poetry” Laura U. Marks, Touch, 2002.
An object, image or narrative in dissolve invites us to partake in our own process of resolution. I am interested in what slips away from symbolic recognition and into the haptic realm. I’m particularly drawn to Deleuze’s philosophy of Immanence, which emphasises connections over forms of separation. The nature of my work is primarily collaborative; working alongside the ideas of others is key. Through sculpture, drawing, video, performance and curation, I work with aspects that have become relegated, with a view drawing them back into experience.
How long have you been practising?
I originally trained in Fashion and Textiles, working as a designer in London in the late 80’s and early ‘90’s. Since then my practice has continued to expand. I returned to study in 2009 on the BA in Fine Art at The University of Lincoln.
What is the most interesting/inspiring thing you have seen/been to over the last month, and why?
I recently stumbled upon The Golden Age of Circus – The Show of Shows (BBC4), directed by Benedikt Erlingsson. (Originally screened in June 2015 on the opening night of Sheffield Doc/Fest). Inspired by Man with a Movie Camera (1929) by Dziga Vertov, it is comprised of over an hour of international archive footage; a wordless, dynamic collage of circus life, performance and audience response. I loved the way it resisted any chronological/historical interpretation by juxtaposing different eras and place and in so doing succeeded in accentuating the nature of the form itself. It really seemed to exemplify Bakhtin’s notion of the Carnivalesque, deftly mocking the authority and the traditional hierarchy of much documentary filmmaking that is shown on TV.
Which other artists’ work do you admire, and why?
I keep returning to Luc Tuymans, Eva Hesse and Peter Buggenhout. Tuymans’ disappearing images; dissolving forms, symbols and historical moments suggest representation is only ever partial and meaning is something constructed from fragments rather than innate. Hesse’s work is so frequently cited; I think this is because she generated so many points of contact to it. For me it embodies the affective nature of the ‘in-between’ and feels aligned to Deleuze’s concept of multiplicity as qualitative and continuous. Buggenhout’s sculptures have a unique presence; enigmatic concoctions of waste material, at once abject and seductive, managing to appear as if they have always existed.
Where can people see your work?
I am a member of General Practice, an artist collective based in Lincoln. Our programme of events for 2016 includes a series of shows in domestic settings, plus workshops and talks across the city. I also work as part of a curatorial group for Slumgothic, based at X-Church in Gainsborough. My work can also be viewed on my website.
Kate was first interviewed in February 2016.
Contact us if you would like to take part in Meet the Artist.