Kath Fries

Kath Fries is currently a doctoral candidate at Sydney College of the Arts the University of Sydney. Her practice-led research investigates embodied engagements with materiality in contemporary art practices and how such experiences of touching impermanence can be synonymous with present time immediacy and empathetic interconnections. Kath’s practice involves working with tactile materials to explore complex entanglements of our senses and our sentient surroundings. Her sculptural installations grow from a process of quiet observation and contemplation, incorporating receptive engagements with site, reflecting on the uncontainablity and fragility of life. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, creating works for conventional gallery spaces, as well as temporal site-responsive interventions in heritage buildings, cemeteries, forests, derelict urban spaces, tidal zones, museums and rural sites. Kath has a Master of Visual Arts (research) from Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours from College of Fine Arts UNSW. She has been awarded an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant, an Australian Postgraduate Research Award, an Australia Council ArtStart Grant, NAVA NSW Artists’ Grants and a Japan Foundation New Artist Award. Kath has been an artist-in-residence at Arteles Creative Centre Finland, and in Australia at Fremantle Art Centre WA, Hill End NSW, Bundanon Trust NSW, The Lock-Up Museum Newcastle NSW, and Laughing Waters in Eltham VIC.
www.kathfries.com

Kath Fries, 2012 Parramatta Artists Studios, photo by Alex Wisser

In Tracing Materiality Kath will explore tactile and sensory engagements with materiality, and how embodied processes can conjure attentiveness to present time. Working with beeswax and paper, using scratching translucencies, drips, changing natural light and the beeswax’s aromatic presence, she will respond to pre-existing aspects of the space including the natural light of the windows, old bolts in the ceiling and the lightboxes by the staircase. These installations will combine site sensitivity with the tactility and mutability of beeswax as a drawing material.