Undercurrent – exhibition

 

The following exhibition text accompanies Katherine’s latest show Undercurrent, opening tonight. 

‘Last year something in me broke. Following the premature birth of my youngest daughter I developed severe postnatal depression. Inhabiting the imperfection of motherhood, intimately aware of the raw vulnerability of the body and self, I surrendered to a humbling lack of control. Drawing with my daughter held close to my body, her presence began to direct the marks I made – both literally as I used my hands interchangeably to smudge pastels and dip feathers into ink to strike the page, and figuratively as her weight and warmth against my chest led me to draw from a place of love. During the making of this work I’ve experienced a willingness to carry and be carried – I don’t feel wholly responsible for the figures that have emerged, but I do wish to honour their fragile flesh and serpentine emotions.’

Katherine Sheers

‘The works in Undercurrent trace emotions and ideas of the self through layers of drawn lines. Impressions left by the bodies and by the body of work as a whole are somehow both direct as well as hidden. No one word befits the interpretation of any image, and through the repetition that is integral to Sheers’ practice, her subjects live freely beneath their fluid rhythm and surface: undefined and complex.’

Sarah Boulton (Slade School of Fine Art – curator of Undercurrent)