Kath Fries Studio: May 2015

Kath Fries, Sun-panels, 2015, beeswax, found stones and branch, sunlight and shadows,
BigCi Art Shed, Bilpin, NSW

Over the past few weeks I've been visiting the BigCi art shed, making work and exploring the area, thanks to the support of Hawkesbury Regional Gallery. Warm morning sunlight streams into the art shed, thawing out the chill of mountains' winter weather, and these pools of sunlight seemed to direct how I inhabited the space. Working in such an unusually large studio space enabled me to pour numerous fragile beeswax panels and gently spread them out across the extensive concrete floor.

Kath Fries, Sun-panels, 2015, beeswax, found stones and branch, sunlight and shadows,
BigCi Art Shed, Bilpin, NSW

The beeswax sourced from Malfoy's, also in the Blue Mountains, was an extremely rich yellow colour due to its freshness and the types of pollen and nectar that the bees had collected. Although I liked the vibrancy of the colour and its associations of lively pollination and thriving health, it was really too bright and intense for my purposes. Hoping that the sunlight would naturally cause the wax to fade, I tried moving the panels into patches of sunshine funnelled into the studio via the huge roller doors. In the process of repositioning these panels - chasing the pools of sunlight that shifted over the course of the morning - my traces of movement developed into an installation in itself. I documented the playful lines and shapes of my beeswax panels in the space as they changed in relation to the sunlight and shadow transitions.

Kath Fries, Sun-panels, 2015, beeswax, sunlight and shadows, detail view

Kath Fries, Sun-panels, 2015, beeswax, found stones and branch, sunlight and shadows

Kath Fries, Sun-panels, 2015, beeswax, found stones and branch, sunlight and shadows

BigCi - Bilpin international grounds for Creative initiatives, is located on the edge of the Blue Mountains National Park and Wollemi National Park. During my visits I've been exploring the rocky escarpments and water catchments of the area, and was intrigued to learn about the poetically named 'hanging swamps' and their vital roles in maintaining the local ecosystems. For my upcoming installation work at Hawkesbury Regional Gallery in Windsor, 19 June - 2 August 2015, I’ve collected sandstone shards and branches from the area, and dripped them with beeswax to echo the layered interconnections between precipitation and geology which has evolved to support the unique flora and fauna of the area.

Kath Fries, Sun-panels, 2015, beeswax, found stones and branch, sunlight and shadows

Kath Fries, Sun-panels, 2015, beeswax, found stones and branch, sunlight and shadows

Resident Spotlight - May 2015 Kath Fries, bigci.org/artists-in-residence

Kath Fries, Divest, 2014, beeswax and ash, detail view, SCA Galleries

ACCREATION: UN-BECOMING AND THE SURFACE AS SIGHT
Niall Robb, Laura Hunt, Kath Fries,

Alma Studholme and Charlotte Richardson

Verge Gallery, Darlington NSW

Opening 6-8pm Thursday 18 June, continues to 11 July 2015

Accreation: Un-becoming and the Surface as Sight brings together five artists from disparate practices, each exploring surface as a site of the imperceptible, and the space between process and actualization of work. Robb understands surface as a sight of enchantment, coupling the circulatory nature of moving image with the materiality of surface to explore the imperceptible in a space between reality and mythology. Richardson’s bespoke jewelry pieces explore the everyday, collapsed and reformed. Her up-cycled domestic plastic products hold an uncanny sensibility, forming a new relationship with the viewer via the mirrored surface. Hunt’s practice is based in the documentation of action, she takes imperceptibility of sound as an ever-evolving and circulatory surface. Fries installations looks at the ephemerality of the physical surface as a site of creation, suggesting impermanence and transience. In Firing Enzo, Studholme draws on the properties and processes of the ceramic material. In the process of documenting her work, Studholme reveals slippage inherent in process, and the impossibility of control. The resulting works transform the gallery into a many-layered space of to uncover and re-imagine the surface of things.

Kath Fries, Divest, 2014, beeswax and ash, detail view, Articulate Project Space

For this exhibition I will be installing a rendition of Divest, my beeswax and ash sculptural installation series that explores uncontainablity and porous intersections between artifice and nature. In this work, beeswax polyp forms cluster in a vertical crevice, seemingly seeping inwards to gradually invade the gallery space. These aromatic translucent shapes suggest embodied presence but their surfaces are smattered with ash, which in turn conjure a sense of uneasiness, vulnerability and loss.

The engagement with process and space in Divest, reflects my practice of tracing the impermanence of present experience, as an ongoing tangible engagement with the passage of time and fragility of life. Working with tactile materials to explore interconnections between our senses and our surroundings, this sculptural installations is quiet, sensitive engagements with site and materiality.

For more about my Divest installation series see kathfries.com