A Southern Arts Hero

Kathryn McCully is a Southland arts hero and a good client of ours.   I first met her several years ago at an opening where her intriguing painted mirrors were displayed.  She was resplendent with bright lips, high arched drawn eye brows…vibrant and beautiful. I was delighted she was the new Visual & Screen Arts Programme Manager at the Southern Institute of Technology.  She came to most art openings and events, adding her wit and charm to the affairs.  I caught up with her a few weeks ago at the Invercargill Club to learn more about this fascinating person.

Kathryn’s pursuit of higher learning in Australia whilst leading the programme at SIT involved a hectic pace for a year or so.  She’s back in Invercargill pursuing studies at a steadier pace.  ‘Betty Boop’ is replaced by ingénue…dare I say Audrey Hepburn a la Roman Holiday.

When asked about her style evolution, McCully shrugs, “Yeah, I like changing it up.  I go through phases.  My older sister is a fashion designer, my younger is a painter. So, I like to explore those kinds of things.  It’s fun.”

She grew up amidst the creative pursuits of an interior designer mother.  Her parents bought homes and renovated them to on-sell.  Later on, they began building homes, so it was natural for Kathryn live amongst constantly evolving spaces.  An early primary school report hinted at her future in art.  The teacher wrote in her report of Kathryn’s intent to be an artist.  Six years of study at the Dunedin School of Art resulted in a Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts.  After a stint as the Manager/Curator of the Ashburton Public Art Gallery she headed south to Invercargill.

Arts practice and raison d’être

I asked her to talk about her arts practice and the painted mirrors:

My practice has always been about art and artists, really, and how people perceive art and artists. My work has been a lot about what I do in the arts.

The mirrors for me were about quite literally people being able to see themselves and the space that the works were in reflected in the work.  So part of it was the notion that artwork is never really by one person or can be attributed to one person. The ideas and inspiration come from a social scene of people you’re engaged with and therefore some attribution should occur within that scene.  People are able to look at themselves and, as the piece moves into different environments as people move it into their homes or into galleries, it reflects a bit of that environment.  It becomes part of the artwork. That was really the starting point for working on the mirrors.

Galleries, museums and stripped Context

I’ve worked in a lot of galleries and museums.  So, I’m quite interested in the way those environments function.  They’re traditionally stripped back. There’s a purposeful desire to remove the context of the artwork.

I think about the journey of the artwork. It begins in the artists’ studio, which can be an environment like a workshop full of everything. Lots of artists have their workshops in their homes. Then the artwork goes from that environment where you see all the context and you get a really good sense of where that work comes from and what it’s about.  It has all that stripped away and is moved into a gallery space.  Now the audience is going to file passed the artwork and look at it for about 10 seconds and move on.

The artist has been working on this body of work for years sometimes.  The audience is supposed to figure out the context of the artwork when so much of it has been stripped away.  I’m interested in why galleries and museums do that.

Institutions are really powerful in that regard.  Artworks are made really portable.  They’re made to be in exhibitions. So, all the things that we are (as artist and observer) have effectively been influenced by this really powerful institutional ethos that has come from Europe.  The history of museums and galleries have pretty elite models and are quite exclusive. I’m interested in how that has fed into our public museums and art galleries.  I see this as being quite problematic for communities as well.

I’m interested in the difficulty artists have to make work for that environment instead of just making work. This environment is something that contributes to people’s entire perception of what artwork should be and what an artist should be.  I think that is really interesting.

The sterile model

Some are excluded

That sterile model excludes a lot of artists because of the idea of what an artist is and what they should do, particularly in regions.  I’ve met a whole lot of artists here definitely on the outside of the museum gallery ideologies who have practices in their own rights.  It doesn’t really matter to them that they don’t exhibit.However, I know they want opportunities to share their work with other people.  They may not necessarily see themselves as artists (but) they are creative people who make things.

I think it’s a real shame that some of that work doesn’t get more exposure because, for me, it’s the most compelling in terms of the culture and history of Southland. This is what I’m really trying to showcase down here.  People coming in (to Southland)…that’s what they really need to see… so that they can have more of a window into this community.

This kind of work is the most compelling because it’s about the people here in this place.  I think it is work that people here would identify with the most.  When people come here, what they want is to get a taste of something else.  They don’t want to see a homogenised culture.   To see a Hotere in a gallery is fantastic. But we don’t want to see one in every single gallery we go to around New Zealand.  When we go to a place, we want to get a sense of that place.  It’s amazing to see renowned New Zealand artists in gallery and museums, but it’s equally important to show the work of people who live and work there.

Outside the normal gallery environment

One of the artists I’m working with is Sandy Nur.  She works a full-time job.  She works a lot of hours and has a studio in her house. She probably stays up until the small hours in the morning every night making work.  And she makes all kinds of work.

We’re working on a project together at the moment. It’s a durational installation, so it will take place over a year.  She’s creating a large number of miniature interiors that explore ideas around immigration, and her comparison of local domestic environments to environments some immigrants have come from. She thinks about the fact that people exist in boxes.  The particular ways they’re quite contained and how they don’t think outside of that.  It’s going to be exhibited at the Mevlana Kebab Shop on Tay Street.  I’m working with her on catalogues, so people will be able to take away information.  The idea is to get conversations started.

The idea is these miniatures build up over time and create conversations in that environment. People have come to Southland from completely different countries.  They inevitably have to deal with culture shock and the opinions of both locals and friends and family whom they have become distant from. Then there’s the issue of trying to make a living and settle into a new home. So, it’s all of those sort of conversations that are applicable to the community as a whole.  There’s just incredible detail that she’s employing in the work.

Our conversation with Kathryn McCully will continue next week. 

So, what do you think?  Do gallery and museum environments too sterile to fully your experience of viewing art.  What kinds of changes, if any,  would you like to see in the way artwork is displayed.  Let us know in the comments below.

Claridge & Brodrick Design Gallery

The difficulty of viewing art and picture framing in a stripped back environment was one of the considerations addressed during our rebrand.  The result is our Design Gallery downstairs at Claridge & Brodrick Artisan Picture Framing.

Appointments are now available

For our time-crunched clients, appointments are now available by clicking here. However, walk-ins are always welcome, too.

If you have any questions you’d like answered by us at Claridge & Brodrick; or if you’d like to ask Kathryn a question, leave a comment below or contact us via our contact form.

Thank you for stopping by.

Kind regards,

Beverly Claridge,

Creative Director

Claridge & Brodrick Artisan Picture Framing