Artist : Katie Sims
Title : Around, Across, Upon
Medium : oil on panel
Dimensions : 30 x 24 cm



ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

Painting, for Katie Sims, is the closest thing to an act of communion. Her work reinforces the complexities of engagement, of seeing beyond first appearances and in questioning the origins and absolutes presented. Constraints are an integral part of her process, from a conceptual, painterly and physical stance. These limitations help her pare back to the essential, towards a directness of emotional statement and to silence; the silence the process facilitates and the silence the work is trying to get at. It is a simplifying, but not in the sense as to reduce complexity for it is layered with complexity and thus demands more from the viewer. Maintaining a balance around the transition point requires great focus akin to any devotional practice. The repetition and movement between prior intention and intention-in-action supports the virtues of listening and humility as she ‘assists’ something into being Her work is a process that leads to a resolve. She places herself in an in-between space, between two opposing poles, challenging what resolve is through the middle ground until these two states are in a complete tension. Each resolution is different; chromatically, compositionally, through colour or light, yet each involves a circular dialogue of adding and removing. Thus her resolve sustains an instability of form, which manifests as hesitant and uncertain of itself. Sims sees this liminal space as the place where distinctions dissolve and the best opportunity for renewal is found. It is a fluid, malleable situation that enables new customs and identities to be unconcealed.

Katie Sims was born in Shropshire, England in 1988 and currently lives and works on the small island of Gozo, Malta. Her paintings have been exhibited internationally and can be found in collections worldwide.