Katrina Maguire

Separation and Restoration

It is a very precious experience to witness the growth of an artist, to see their practice evolve, develop and finally engage with the way in which life and ideas are navigated and made sense of in the exhibitions that mark a continual commitment. My experience of Katrina Maguire’s work spans a 20-year period. In that time I have seen Katrina’s vibrant practice flourish, rich with intelligence, rigor and elegance. I have seen how life, the places, the people, relationships, ideas and experiences have been deftly translated in to pieces of work that have gone beyond the personal to invite a wider audience, and flesh out concerns that intrigue and comment upon life in numerous guises and forms. 

Core to my experience of Katrina’s work are two very early paintings. Both paintings in many ways hold the key to the conceptual fabric that underpins her extensive practice and the current work. The catalogue of our visual memory, archives a multitude of images, some can be played back as short movies others as insistent stills. When seeing and hearing about Katrina’s new work for the Context Gallery off-site project at Prehen House two archived images presented themselves at the forefront of my memory.

The two paintings in question, may formally bare little resemblance to the video work and paintings presented today, context and subject have shifted and evolved. The paintings of Katrina’s father dressed regally as the Pope in Confessions of the Garden and of her mother dressed as the Queen in Royal Appointment seem to encapsulate a re-occurring concern that has nuanced Katrina’s practice over the years. A concern of translating the personal engagement with place and individuals alongside the consideration of hybrid cultures, decoration, site and how we identify the self as a fluid inscription of experience.

Both paintings are commanding in presence and hint at the surreal, Katrina’s parents transported to a wildly over grown garden in Leytonstone, London and the rural beauty of the North West coast of Ireland, two landscapes that Katrina has a strong relationship too. They are portrayed and dressed to represent the heads of two longstanding powerful institutions – the head of the Catholic Church and the British Royal family. There is more than a faint sense of irony and humour about the work. Devoid of the sentimentality that can so often stain family portraits, the symbolic use of the patriarch and matriarch of historically opposing sides is a strange and fantastical proposition.  Yet, these paintings speak more about Katrina’s reconciliation of her sense of self and her burgeoning sense of identity as an Irish artist, and the memory of landscapes that have at times been defined as home. These works were in essence a working through of how we engage with the world and our notion of ‘self’ through the experience of not only place but of the people who become symbolic of the places and cultures we experience.

The performative element in both these paintings is an important motif in consideration of the later works particularly in relation to Viewpoint and Picture House. The role of dress and re-enactment of events or personal testimony works in tandem with the re-positioning of the unfolding narratives as a means to understand and preserve. The individual narratives offer personal negotiation of memory, culture, religion - they refrain from the didactic to present authentic insight and enact individuals in the process of working through material and content rather than present definitive facts and closed readings.

There is an embedded implication that the works often refers to Katrina’s very personal response to place and people, yet the work is far from autobiographical in a confessional sense. Katrina’s presence as mediator to both subject and audience is subtly nuanced. In the video pieces and installations (Picture House, Viewpoint) her role as instigator, witness, and collector of narratives that may otherwise be unheard or unacknowledged is restrained and insistent. In the site specific works (draw’ing – room, Bedding Out) she brings seemingly fractured elements, weaving together fragments of decoration, object and site to evoke memory and create a very intimate re-negotiation of the specific locations.

In many ways Viewpoint, converge numerous aspects and concerns of the earlier works. Part excavation and part restoration of experiences and spaces that are now physically and temporally distanced, they belong to another country and culture. Within this work Katrina has collated together testimonies of personal and cultural memory of family and friends living in the Middle East, in particular Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The three video portraits address and openly express views and experiences of living between two seemingly similar cultures and traditions.  In doing so, Viewpoint exposes the current media obsession of defining Middle Eastern countries as uniformed, an errant concept. The man and woman are filmed in their home environment and wear national dress. They talk about their negotiation of the different lifestyles between the two states and the codes and convention by which they adhere to and live by. The individuals are candid in their presentations; there is an inherent sense of working through their explanations of the cultural traditions. The monologues are informative and enlightening – the details of personal experiences and observations are re-presented in a mode of critically engaged reading of culture.

The third video is of a young girl describing the compound in which she lives, her understanding of the Islamic religion and the cultural and daily differences that she has witnessed between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Her innocence in exploring these differences and her understanding is captivating; she articulates her perception with insightful clarity. Defining herself as Irish/Saudi bring a particular resonance to the work, not only in relation to the context and site of exhibition, but in witnessing an individual making sense of their own identity and how culture and tradition inflect and mark.

The video is presented alongside a series of paintings, reworked from stills taken from original video footage of the compound that is her home. Visually they are stark and minimal a sense of absence prevails. They offer an oppositional perspective to the rich and detailed description given by the young girl. Thus a sense of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ perspectives is offered for the viewer to consider.

All three video’s enunciate individual perspectives of culture at a crossroad, and examine the contrast between the contemporary and traditional worlds. There is an inherent sense of straddling a duality, where tradition imbues regulation and rule, yet there is a suggestion to openness, to change and progress. The Bahrain and Saudi causeway that is cited in all of the video works and in visual form by a digital print and which connects these two geographical states is more than a physical border – it is a symbolic figure for the people as an intersection between two cultures and the dualities by which they live.

For Katrina this has particular resonance in relation to her own experience of growing up in Strabane, Northern Ireland and her frequent trips to the Republic of Ireland. The border crossing she experienced gave her a valuable insight and sensitivity to being aware of the difference between two outwardly similar cultures and the formation of identity at an interstices of countries.

Another aspect of Viewpoint is the manner in which one sense of home and belonging physically to space, objects and artefact is investigated. The collective pieces of Viewpoint – the video, paintings, books, and objects – are situated perfectly within the backdrop of Prehen house heirlooms, collections and artefacts. Careful consideration has been given to the position of the videos in relation to the rooms at the site/house, thus the existing spaces and objects are saturated with subverted meaning in context to what is expressed with the videos. The domestic spaces of Prehen house suggest and invite an internalisation of material and experience. The elements of Viewpoint working in tandem with the natural settings, gently enable the viewer to find and unravel for themselves their own directed reading and negotiation of other cultures.

In offering such experience, notions of travel and the exoticised ‘other’ come into play and enunciate cultural difference through encounter. Thus making explicit Katrina’s role as both participant and observer – shifting through and ordering material, which is then restored in relation to site. Enabling her to reflect, share and make sense of what she has witnessed and how she now considers such material and knowledge. There is a very real sense of the performative role of travel in relation to the self and what we experience beyond our own identities.

Katrina has had a longstanding relationship with the Middle East. Through familial links she has travelled to Bahrain for 15 years, she has witnessed how the culture and country is changing and how she is still trying to come to terms with some of the traditions when they are so very different to her own experience – it is a very authentic and sensitive relationship. In many ways Viewpoint has at its centre a negotiation of this relationship, the external narratives act as conduit for Katrina’s experience. As viewer, this action is mirrored in our engagement with the work. Hence, the materials that Katrina has collated and reworked are presented to us as an invite to enact a similar journey of discovery and ponder our own pre-conceptions.

Viewpoint in many ways marks an acknowledgement to the earlier paintings – in which place and people fuse to create a validation of experiences/encounter. However, Katrina’s investigation into the Middle Eastern culture has other precursors.  draw’ing –room and Bedding Out are incredibly significant works which explore memory, space and importantly decoration, both partially inspired by Katrina’s travels and time spent in Bahrain.

draw’ing – room offers a delicate investigation of memory, space through decoration. The installation was originally housed in Katrina’s studio, the walls intricately covered with powdered charcoal to create a decorative design, which pays homage to moments and memories of the past and present. Conjuring past memories of the flock wallpaper that adorned the family home in Strabane, and her engagement and influence of Islamic pattern as experienced on her recent travels to the Middle East and the Alhambra in Spain. Time and memory merge to suggest a new imaginary space. This work has a quiet insistence and ethereality, however there is also an inherent awkwardness. The pattern is not consistent, at times it almost disappears, the room’s natural architecture punctures and disturbs the rhythm. The drawings – recall memories of decoration, of places and visual memory and like all memories, the experience of draw’ing – room fades in and out of focus and reading.  As viewer, this enactment of memory is something that is physically experienced in relation to the works suggestive presence.

Yet perhaps a more explicitly reference to Islamic and eastern aesthetics was made apparent in the large-scale installation that followed the draw’ing – room. Devoid of iconic representation Bedding Out again uses pattern and design to create a beautiful and evocative installation made from Petri dishes of dried herbs and spices. The work refers explicitly to surface garden design and in particular the idea of the ‘Parterre’ – a gardening term that refers to the intricate design of ornamental gardening beds. The order of the Petri dishes is seductive and excessive – the symmetrical design clearly references her influence of Islamic mosaic design. Here again the physical experience of memory is central, during the timeframe of the exhibition the herbs and spices aroma and colours fade naturally due to exposure. The location of Bedding Out at the site, offers yet another interaction for the viewer. It can be experienced from several viewpoints and perspectives, each offering a potential new experience and engagement with the pieces physical presence.

Both these works place a specific emphasis on how the viewer physically engages with the work and site. Similarly to Viewpoint as all three pieces suggest that the audience partakes in more than a pedestrian experience – thus enabling the multitude of layers and references to surface and be experienced.

The cultural and personal references that Katrina’s works with are rich and inflect – there is a very real sense of reciprocity. Her formidable and respected practice formally resists categorisation. It remains fresh and alive – in constant negotiation of ideas and espousing of conceptual fabric. At the heart of the work is an intense commitment to the negotiation of how place and memory can be evoked and considered. For Katrina places of importance and encounter become impregnated by the individuals who make them particular, people, place and experience merge to form distinct memories – all three elements remain inseparable. The work and practice over the years has evolved to become a rich and layered tapestry of a personal geography, one that maps out and locates the personal as a political and offers an insightful re-reading of culture and experience.

Gill Addison – London 2007