Kate Mcdowell

Looking at your work to me is like looking at something really detailed beautiful and on the secound look you always have 2 stories or sides to your pieces. Do you like combining two complete different elements?

Yes, I find that the contrast between two conflicting elements such as beauty and the grotesque, cuteness and dark themes, natural and man-made forms make the pieces interesting for me. Also my pieces are often responding to a very specific current environmental issue, but also reference larger more mythic themes.

In a lot of your pieced there are animales, and mostly these animales are in the condition of death or in one that seems unhealthy for them. Is there something ture about this interpretation?

Yes, I like to focus on the conflict between our longing for and love of the natural environment and our current impacts upon it. My pieces respond to specific environmental threats including air pollution, climate change, and clear-cutting, and consequences including rapidly diminishing plant and animal species. They also borrow from myth, art history, and figures of speech. I express our longing for union with nature by transforming parts of the human body – using a physical connection between nature and the body to reference a psychological connection. In other pieces, I give animals human qualities by dressing them in safety equipment to attempt to protect them from man-made environmental threats. In each case the union between man and nature is shown to be one of friction with the implication that we also may become victims of our destructive practices.

To your Background. Did you like going to school/University/College?

Yes, for the most part I loved it, but I also went to alternatively structured schools from elementary through high school, and a very flexible university.

Does school create art?

It gives you the time and space and resources to create art, and can offer you a community of other artists to introduce you to new ideas, bounce ideas off of, get feedback from, and compete with in a healthy way. It also encourages you to experiment without worrying about the marketability of your work. Schools can also be unhe althy environments for s ome artists, I think it de pends on the individua l, and the values of the school.

If there would be no art in this world, the world would be...?

Transitory and soon forgotten.

Your favourite Song?

so many! one is:

The Mountain - Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer

Pastry?

marionberry cheesecake

Place to live?

Glasgow, Scotland and Portland, Oregon (based on places I have lived).

Where you ever in Vienna?

Nope, I was in Innsbruck for a few days though...

Thank you so much Kate for your time! we wish you all the best!



MB