Kathy Temin
WOVEN

Kathy Temin’s exhi­bi­tion, ​‘Woven’, invokes the unfold­ing of his­to­ries through colour and mate­r­i­al. Per­son­al sto­ries, con­nect­ing pri­vate and col­lec­tive mem­o­ries, com­bined with an uncon­ven­tion­al weav­ing process, under­lie this body of work.

Temin’s prac­tice has, over the last two decades, includ­ed mon­u­men­tal­ly scaled works using the repeat­ed motif of ide­alised top­i­ary trees in black and white mono­chrome, employ­ing syn­thet­ic fur to talk about remem­brance and opti­mism; mak­ing inter­ven­tions into inte­ri­or pub­lic spaces to pro­pose a dif­fer­ent type of mon­u­ment. She has chal­lenged author­i­tar­i­an art his­tor­i­cal norms with­in min­i­mal­ism and mod­ernism. Oppo­si­tion­al dia­logues: remem­brance and play, for­mal­ism and sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty, are com­bined to cre­ate a new form of memo­r­i­al.

​“As the child of a Holo­caust sur­vivor, trau­ma, cul­tur­al dis­place­ment and remem­brance have been a focus to dis­cuss absence and silence. I have long been influ­enced by oth­er artists who address these themes, includ­ing Eva Hesse, Yay­oi Kusama, Louise Bour­geois and Louise Nevel­son, some of whom also employ rep­e­ti­tion and the mono­chrome, along with Richard Ser­ra, David Smith, Claes Old­en­burg and Frank Stel­la, whose mate­ri­al­i­ty has been impos­ing and affect­ing.”

Temin’s use of syn­thet­ic fur is asso­ci­at­ed with soft toy imagery and the height­ened sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty con­nect­ed to it. ​“It’s a mate­r­i­al that elic­its com­fort and pro­tec­tion and it’s a mate­r­i­al that also chal­lenges ques­tions of taste.” A recur­rent com­po­nent in the prac­tice is the influ­ence of 1970s archi­tec­ture and inte­ri­or design, invok­ing a per­son­al, domes­tic his­to­ry.

​“For this exhi­bi­tion, I con­tin­ue work­ing with inter­con­nect­ed soft forms and con­sid­er how colour and pat­tern talk about mem­o­ry and his­to­ry. These works com­bine dif­fer­ent mate­r­i­al his­to­ries, they are wall based and mono­chro­mat­ic and each work is made from a dif­fer­ent fab­ric. Recy­cling and con­sump­tion are brought togeth­er; the mate­ri­als were either sourced from my vin­tage col­lec­tion of man­u­fac­tured fur, sourced from fab­ric shops (where I found Stel­la McCartney’s magen­ta fur) or from Spot­light. Where the vin­tage fur has been used, the scale of the work has been deter­mined by the avail­able mate­r­i­al, cap­tur­ing a moment in time. Oth­ers have con­nec­tions with pub­lic art forms, or an asso­ci­a­tion with past works; some will be part of future works.”