Kim is a London based maker who combines metalwork with material research to create finely crafted work – meditative wall pieces – inspired by historical ornament and sacred artefacts. Her practice straddles the disciplines of metalwork, drawing and printmaking and work quite often sits on the line between two and three dimensions. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work explores the territory between drawing and object making through an ongoing investigation of the communicative and reciprocal possibilities that exist between a two-dimensional image and a three-dimensional form. I combine metalwork with formal research, creating three dimensional pieces inspired by sacred and ritual objects.

Drawing is central to my work, acting as reference, content and archive to the objects created. Intricate, detailed drawing is combined with fragments and imagery pulled from a personal, collected archive of photographs, objects and mark-making. Work begins with extensive historical and visual research and is then is developed through a combination of drawing and collage, assemblage, carving and fabrication, working and reworking.  I value the history of the making, the marks and traces that are left on the work from this process, for me they embody the heart and soul of the work.

The pieces I make explore the notion of ‘temenos’ or sacred and circumscribed space. The point of departure for the work is found in objects and imagery that attempt to understand an ‘other’ territory, particularly sacred geometries, alchemic diagrams, sacred architecture and mandalas. These inscribed metal artefacts can be seen to function as ‘maps’, in concentrated, coded form, that allow us to tap into an interior world, or into a collective source wisdom


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BIOGRAPHY

Kim Sutherland studied for a BA(Hons) in 3D Design at WSCAD (now UCA) Farnham, specialising in Metals. She went on to establish her practice as a maker before completing her MA (Metalwork and Silversmithing) at the Royal College of Art. Kim is a senior academic with extensive teaching experience gained over 25 years in Art and Design. In 2004, together with friend and fellow maker Jacky Oliver, she established the influential Design Crafts Degree course at DMU in Leicester going on to direct this programme for a further 8 years. In 2017 she re-established her practice as metalworker, designer and material researcher, working with galleries, interior designers and private clients from her central London Studio.


APPOINTMENTS

 

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS