NEW12 Artist Interview, ACCA 2012

Katie Lee explores the relationship between the body and its environment, investigating the psychological experience of a space. Working between performance and structure, Lee’s installations acknowledge and respond to the site architecture, recognising its significance to the work itself.

For NEW12 Katie Lee has created a series of sculptural objects that modify, measure and respond to the architecture of ACCA. Each art object appears to have a function or familiar association, yet on closer inspection the viewer realises it may not be what they initially thought. A large perspex frame hanging in the space works like a two-way mirror, so that the viewer can look through from one side and see their reflection from the other. These different layers break up the space and draw our attention to how we interpret our surroundings and the ways in which the human body responds to the placement of everyday objects within the gallery space. The second component of the installation is a series of video works featuring dancer Kyle Kremerskothen in the empty ACCA galleries, physically responding to the space and performing a series of actions. Three more of these momentary projections of choreographed movement are interspersed in gallery one, playing intermittently so that they may, or may not be experienced by the viewer. The empty gallery space draws our attention to the architecture, and then as we turn back to face the sculptural elements of Lee’s work we become are of the placement of the objects and how it relates.

NEW12
17 March – 20 May 2012