It's that time of year when it is just so easy to be situated on a Rooftop in the heart of the fine city of Melbourne. Everyone is in a good mood and ready to have a bit of a giggle. Complementing that mood Karen and Catherine have created a wonderful show, thick with whimsy and technical skill. The contrast between Karen's Gocco lightbulb grapes and Catherine's painstakingly hand-torn, newspaper caterpillar-y things creates a fine balance of texture and tone. This is the first time Karen and Catherine have held a shared show together and it has been a wonderful success in our eyes and i'm sure yours.
Biography and Artist Statements
Catherine Westerman
Catherine studied graphic design at the London College of Printing in her youth and has returned to her creative roots by undertaking a Diploma of Visual Arts at the Centre for Adult Education. She completed her minor in sculpture this year and will go on to major in works on paper in 2013.
People often think Catherine is strange for her magpie tendencies. She has been known to hoard everything from tuna can lids to Ikea pencils. Catherine has been honing these instincts into her sculptural work; recycling paper she has collected and stored away over the years, pages from Good Weekend magazine, paper register rolls from old cash registers, florists wrapping paper. Her work tends towards the OCD as she folds, cuts, pleats, creases, curls and shreds paper to form mini sculptures that appear almost like maquettes for larger pieces. She then organises and rearranges them into collections. Over the year she has established a very specific cabinet of curiosities, a little paper museum for the future.
Karen Salter
Karen is three quarters of her way through a Diploma of Visual Art at the Centre for Adult Education in Melbourne. In 2012 she completed her minor in sculpture and will take on painting as her major study in 2013. Her work has been included in several student exhibitions.
She has a Bachelor of Arts Interior Design from RMIT University and in the past has worked as a set designer/ art director on television productions and in the event industry.
Unofficially I’m a greenie. I can’t bear the thought of mountains of rubbish piling up and polluting the Earth. I know it’s often easier to toss things in the trash but it just doesn’t seem right to me.
As a result of this thinking I’ve held on to collections of objects that should otherwise be discarded, hopeful that one day I could put them to good use.
These collections are not random- the objects have an inherent beauty. They include hardware items, light bulbs that can no longer serve their purpose, and old mirrored tiles. When grouped together and combined with other materials they are reborn into pieces that intend to surprise and delight.
