Kiki Smith

Press Release

Comunicato PDF
Press Release PDF

‘Compass’ refers not only to a navigational instrument but also a drawing instrument; a linguistic crossover and a functional crossover that is neatly representative of this exhibition which presents some of the artist’s most recent works alongside previously unseen ones. 

Including drawings on Japanese rice paper, (kitikata), as well as Nepalese paper, tapestries, bronze and aluminum sculptures, contact prints on silver gelatin photo paper and gold-leafed cyanotypes, a chemical photo-sensitive printing technique that leaves the relief of the image on a cyan background, the exhibition reflects on the constant concerns of the artist - the vastness of the universe and the female and animal soul. These latter cyanotype works, self-portraits of the artist, combine the artist’s tendency towards the end of the 90’s to turn her attention to the external world and the constant preoccupation of her oeuvre on the body, of the artist and of the female. 

In ‘Compass’, drawing has the most immediate connection with the material. Mature female faces on a cyan background accented with stars or pencil and ink drawings on Nepalese paper, a paper made from fibers of the Lokta brush that are visible in the materiality of the paper, depict the internal narrative of the artist accompanied by a constant external questioning, exploration and interest in the celestial and the natural world. 

Congregation 2014 is a colossal scale tapestry that provides an interpretation of the female figure amongst nature. The very medium itself adheres to the artist’s tendency to communicate worldly and cosmic experiences through the works that act as objects of inexhaustible creativity and are made with an almost artisan-like love and dedication. These tapestries, often worked into by hand after being produced with a digital Jacquard frame, use a traditional medium to confidently present the artist’s belief that humanity has a potential spiritual harmony to be rediscovered.