Katherine Sankey—Containment: Chthonic Parts 2 & 3

About

Exhibition dates*: Thursday, 15th October – Saturday, 31st October

Gallery open: 12–6 pm Thursday–Saturday

*This exhibition will go ahead as planned on the basis current government restrictions are downgraded to Level 2. Please check our website and social media for updates and refer to current government guidelines.

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Katherine Sankey’s artworks investigate mutation, adaptation, colonisation and power. They explore structure, supply, and degradation; asking questions about nature, the natural, the body, and function. It is both a deeply serious and lightly playful project. Abstract, cerebral, visceral and immediate, it expresses both stagnation and catharsis.

She uses natural and human-made media – whittled tree-trunks, polished and reused plumbing pipes, discarded medical and electrical components, porcelain. Her sculpture is sprawling and minutely-detailed. She works with waste materials and detritus to produce unique creations, technically finessed termite mounds of piping, wood and minerals; supply systems that begin underground and replicate in unforeseen patterns, parasitically invading the host space.

This solo show for Pallas Projects seeks to challenge assumptions about both the boundaries of the human and what constitutes the agency of the object. It holds a grimy, distorted mirror to ‘the real’. In its uncanny representations of embodied experience, it is about dis-ease, disturbance, anxiety, illness and repair.

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Katherine Sankey

Recent group shows in Ireland include RUA RED Winter Show 2019 (winning the Solo Award 2020), TULCA 2019 – Tactical Magic (Galway), 189th RHA Annual Exhibition (Dublin); CAST, Luan Gallery (Athlone), Sculpture in Context (Dublin). Other group shows include: Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition 2020, Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen) as well as Galerie Artsenal and La Collége Irlandaise (Paris) and Knights Park Gallery (London). She has made solo exhibitions at BWA Galleries (Krakow, Lublin & Wroclaw, Poland), Galeria Pryzmat (Krakow, Poland), Richard Demarco Gallery (Edinburgh).

She is 2020 recipient of the Fire Station Artists’ Studios Sculpture Award and gave a ‘Plinth Politics’ talk at the Royal Hibernian Academy in February. Upcoming is her solo exhibition at RUA RED during the Winter Exhibition. Her work will be included in PLATFORM 21 at Draíocht. Sankey is an invited artist in this year’s RHA Annual Exhibition and will show ‘Desmosome’ sculpture in the LAB Gallery cube space, Dublin. Katherine was born in Paris; grew up between Paris, Belfast and Sydney and is based in Dublin.

Website www.katherinesankey.com
​Instagram @katherinesankey_artist

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Artist-Initiated Projects at Pallas Projects/Studios is an open-submission, annual gallery programme of 10 x 3-week exhibitions taking place at rescheduled dates from August 2020, in the context of a gallery space with a dedicated tradition towards the professional development of artists in a peer-led, supportive environment. This unique programme of funded, artist-initiated projects selected via open call is highly accessible to artists, with a focus on early career, emerging artists and recent graduates. Projects are supplemented with artists' talks, texts, workshops or performances, and gallery visits by colleges and local schools.

Artist-Initiated Projects aims to act as an incubator for early careers, and support artists' practices at crucial stages, providing a platform for artists to produce and exhibit challenging work across all art forms. The model of short-run exhibitions with a relatively short turnaround time of 3–6 months is an alternative to the normal institutional model, where the process of studio visit to exhibition can take several years. Shorter lead-in times allow the programme to be quick and responsive, reflect what artists are currently making, and encourage experimentation and risk-taking.

Pallas Projects/Studios Artist-Initiated Projects is funded by The Arts Council