kate amery

Sculpture - Kate Amery

Set Design - Saskia Martindale

Village Raw - Issue Oct/Dec 2019

Words by David Reeve:

Kate Amery is a visual artist who works with recycled and found materials to raise awareness of the impact humans have on the environment.

Her series The Plastic Revolution points a finger at the global plastic waste crisis. Plants become overtaken by - and entwined with - collected plastics and wrappings to create a new set of species. “The plastic species is a futuristic view of what our natural environment could look like if it were to merge with the colossal amounts of plastic waste we have created worldwide,” says Kate. The sculpted works are photographed and reworked by mirroring, and adjusting the colour and contrast to produce a surreal effect - bringing out the sculpture’s sensory details.

The resulting photographic works trip into worlds of dreams and fantasy. The artist’s other work has included biodegradable bottle tops that contain seeds, flowers sprouting from warped plastic and the pairing of natural objects with manmade artefacts not normally found together. “I intercept or disrupt what is around me, just as man intervenes with nature.”

Ally Capellino x Kate Amery Window Installation

More information at - www.allycapellino.co.uk/kate-amery

Kate Amery is a visual artist and RCA graduate who creates impactful sculptures from waste plastics. LPOL is a design-led, waste-conscious London accessories brand who champion local, low-impact production. Their mutual passion and belief in reducing, reusing and repurposing has culminated in a new creative project that seeks to uncover, transform and exhibit accumulated waste plastic from the LPOL studio. The exhibit opens on Art Night, 22nd June at the LPOL showroom at Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross.

Energised and inspired, Amery and LPOL founders Katy and John Maskell Bell have salvaged everything from unwanted storage crates and water bottles to polythene bags, stationery and supplier packaging – nearly four cubic metres of unwanted plastic rubbish that was otherwise eating up valuable studio and stock space as well as being either hard or impossible to recycle has been given a second life in the form of abstract organic sculptures that are both visually mesmerising and thought-provoking.

Through her sculptures, Amery aims to jolt the public into recognising their individual provenance and impact with the aim to overcome the apathy that is exacerbated by the government’s slow action in tackling out-of-control levels of plastic waste, and its harmful effect on the environment.

These latest works at first glance appear to be entirely natural in form and texture, incorporating a natural live element such as fresh flowers. But on closer inspection the viewer soon discovers they are created exclusively from melted- down industrial plastics. Small details such as barcodes, serial numbers and brand logos reveal their true identities.

Not only do these sculptures have a playful, illusionary quality that draws the viewer in, there is a poignancy in the juxtaposition of the plastic and the flowers – industry and commerce appearing to engulf and swallow nature.

Beyond artworks, Amery and LPOL imagine a third life for this plastic. It’s their wish that each piece will be donated to the local community – schools and offices – to highlight and educate on the importance of reducing and recycling our waste plastic responsibly.

Words by - LPOL Co-Founder John Maskell Bell on john@lpol.co.uk

Collaboration with Hubbub - Love Your Forest

(Words from Hubbub campagin)

‘Freshly picked from the forest floor…flowers plastic and litter galore!

Each year 250 tonnes of litter are removed from the Forest of Dean area. This cost the local tax payers over £430,00. Litter dropped or left on the ground can stick around for up to 1000 years.

These intricate pieces have been created by artist Kate Amery from commonly discarded items of litter and dried flowers to highlight the impact litter has on forest plants and wildlife. This piece was commissioned by Hubbub for the Love Your Forest anti - litter campaign.

Find out more by searching for #loveyourforest’

The Plastic Revolution is an exploration into how plastic is affecting our planet. Featuring a series of ‘new species’ as an aversion took to shock the public into recognizing their individual impact and overcome the apathy that is exacerbated by government’s slow action.

The Plant Top is a re-designed Bottle Top made from bioplastic with seeds embeded into the material at the production stage. Once the material has biodegraded the seed is released and will germinate and grow. Letting nature reclaim the planet that we are gradually destroying though our excessive plastic use.

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What strikes human eyes determines not only the knowledge of the relations between various objects, but also a given decisive and inexplicable state of mind.’ (Georges Bataille in Blossfeldt et al., 1999, p 7)

In this collection of images I am exploring man’s everyday intervention and interaction with nature.  By pairing natural objects with man-made artefacts not normally found together, the compositions aim to change the viewer’s perceptions of the everyday, highlighting their particular qualities that might otherwise be overlooked. Shapes, textures and colours of the man-made objects in some way mimic or echo the textural, tactile characteristics of the natural objects.  My interventions can thus be seen to extend my role of photographer to that of a stylist.  In my styling of the visual world, I intercept or disrupt what is around me, just as man intervenes with the nature. And while the combinations of objects have been selected to pinpoint human replications of patterns and forms in nature, colours and contrast have been slightly manipulated to achieve a bright, bold, almost surreal effect and bring out the sensory detail of the subject matter. 

The blurring of the sky in these final images alludes to the blurry distinction between reality and the world of dreams and fantasy. The use of blue astro turf as a backdrop for my final exhibition aims to accentuate this. By re-configuring the occurrence of colour and texture in the natural world its purpose is to highlight the interplay not only between perception and ‘reality’ but also make reference to man’s re-appropriation of the planet.  As Baudrillard writes:

Pretending or dissimulating leaves the principle of reality in tact; the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulations threaten the difference between the “true” and the “false”, the “real” and the “imaginary” (Baudrillard, 1994, p3)

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V&A Friday Late : QUIDS IN 31st March 2017 

Space Program - Royal College of Art

http://spaceprogram.rca.ac.uk/

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