“In a social system in which so much culturally relevant information is transmitted via images, it is in the form of images that we most often encounter the objects of our desire. Not only that, but due to the object’s origins in mechanical reproduction, it too behaves as an image...images and objects function as delivery systems for commerce-driven ideologies. That said, such systems are entirely reliant on context and composition and are fatally disrupted by even minor interventions.”
Kate Steciw creates sculptural installations that push the boundaries of the conventional forms of photography, amplifying the ways in which digital processes create a new medium and vocabulary for image capturing. She manipulates images in Photoshop to create abstractions from her own and stock images. Steciw describes the JPEG as, “not a tool of precision but rather of subjective storytelling”, and harnesses this state of possibility and disruption into the production of her art. All of the works shown here are part of her ongoing Construction series - a title that speaks to the active processes of constructing and rendering works of art from essentially immaterial digital images. The hanging sculpture is composed of multiple image cut-outs, in both positive and negative form – such as hands, hats, and squiggles. Her floor-based, knotted soft sculpture is given its form by its continuous ‘skin’ of images. The five wall works make up the artist’s actions of digital gestures and flourishes in both form and content - emphasised by cut-outs and collage overlays within each frame - manifesting the fluidity and disconnections between ‘image’ and ‘object’ that define the digital age.