Join us for a special lecture by artist Kate Clark. The Answer to Your Prayers, a sculpture by Clark is featured in The SuperNatural, currently on view at 21c Durham.

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ARTIST STATEMENT
The fusion of human and animal that I create presents a fiction suggesting that our human state is fully realized when we acknowledge our natural instincts along with our current programming. I emphasize the characteristics that separate us within the animal kingdom, and, importantly, the ones that unite us.

The wild animal hide I use has an energy and presence like no other material. I shave sections of the animal’s skin to reveal porous and oily features that we recognize as our own. Stitched over a hand-sculpted human face, the material quality of the skin brings believability to the final sculpture: they are portraits we relate to. I emphasize the seams so that the faces are obviously reconstructed yet they are not monstrous, they are approachable, calm, dignified, majestic. The viewer has an intimate relationship with the face and then identifies with the full animal, acknowledging the animalistic inheritance within the human condition.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kate Clark is a sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her sculptures synthesize the human face and the body of wild animals, exploring the overlap that exists across our cultures, and within our histories.

Kate had her first solo exhibit at Claire Oliver Gallery in New York in 2008. She has exhibited in solo and group museum shows at the Aldrich Museum, Islip Art Museum, Bellevue Arts Museum, Mobile Museum of Art, 21c Museum Hotels, MOFA: Florida State University, Cranbrook Art Museum, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Glenbow Museum, Musée de la Halle Saint Pierre, Paris, Cleveland State University, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Nevada Museum of Art, Brown University, the Newcomb Museum, the Hilliard Museum and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art.

Her work is in public collections such as the JP Morgan Chase Art Collection, the 21c Collection, the David Roberts Art Foundation in London, and the C-Collection in Switzerland. Clark attended Cornell University (BFA) and Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA).

Image: Kate Clark (American), The Answer to Your Prayers (detail), 2013. Antelope hide, antlers, foam, clay, pins, thread, rubber eyes, wood, paint.