Kate Dorrough recently undertook a two week residency with Earth Canvas.
The project invites contemporary artists whose practice explores environmental issues such as conservation, history and social impact to work on regenerative farms. Creating a dialogue between artists unique perspectives and farmer's working on replenishing landscape, the work that evolves increases engagement with the environment, fostering a deep sense of empathy and connection.
Working over two weeks, Dorrough created works on paper and textile pieces that arose from surrendered experimentation with various materials and the mark making synonymous in her practice.
Sustaining a conversation between paint and clay, Dorrough's practice launches an inquiry into the interplay and tension between the gestural mark and the hand built ceramic form. She explores landscape as metaphor, with its inland river systems a vital source of survival and bestowal of fertility. Dorrough considers the cyclicality of renewal and destruction that defines the land, her painterly gestural marks evoking totemic symbols of this enduring landscape.
Earth Canvas has fostered incredible opportunities for artists who wish to engage with ecological concerns in their work. Working in partnership with Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, the residency hopes to create new ways of regenerative farming and develop close connections with artists who explore these concerns in their work.
