Kate Tucker
Held
5 February - 7 March 2020
Kate Tucker’s works for Held were created through a collage-like process, where paintings were cut and combined, with some pieces left raw and others subjected to continuous iterative changes. Though largely abstract, within the paintings are motifs from instructional images from vintage DIY magazines, depicting hands constructing and fixing ambiguous structures. Hands found their way into many of the works, not always consciously. In the sculptures, hands hold together and nurture fractured bodies. A series of hybrid painting/ sculpture works have ceramic bases holding and supporting paintings, with the content of each painting informed by the structure of its base. There is an interchangeability between abstract and figurative forms, between what is holding and what is being held.
Tucker writes: “These works were process-driven, organically continuing explorations that started in previous bodies of work. But they were also created at a time in which I became more aware of the importance of nurturing my practice, and in turn witnessed the way my work supported me. As is often the case in my work, the subject matter is located somewhere between many contrasts. But this time, more of the broader context of my life found its way into the work, my hands wanted to be shown, I needed to see the work supporting me in return.”
Kate Tucker is a Melbourne-based artist. Her recent projects include solo exhibitions at Daine Singer, Galerie Pompom, Art Stage Singapore, Chapter House Lane, c3 Contemporary Art Space, Platform and Helen Gory, and group exhibitions at NADA New York, Sutton Projects, Dutton Gallery, Caves, Tristian Koenig, SPRING1883, Incinerator Gallery and LON Gallery. Tucker has been a finalist in the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Geelong Contemporary Art Prize, The Substation Prize, Albany Art Prize, Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize, The Churchie Emerging Art Prize, Geelong Acquisitive Print Awards, and The Archibald Prize. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2009.
