Nua Collective Podcast: "Artists Surviving the Pandemic"
Meditative space [...] unfolds in the work of Kaitlynn Webster. Through large-scale,
immersive drawing and sculptural installation she creates space for the viewer to navigate a
dialogue between active engagement and quiet reflection. Her use of repetitive mark
making in drawing and sculpture evokes ritual as a process of catharsis and transformation.
Activated through installation, the distilled formal elements in her work create a spatial
dynamic that fully encompasses the viewer.
Conor McGrady (2019)
Dean, Burren College of Art
http://www.conormcgrady.com
Time is central Kaitlynn Webster’s work, a lot of it is required to make the marks that fill her large drawing and each mark becomes a record of the time it took to make it. Looking at her expansive drawing, the viewer is
struck with the repetition of the ink strokes that fill the page. The brushed square marks start dark and
gradually fade as the ink runs out, and then the brush is reloaded to begin the process again. There is
something very contemplative about the strokes, they cannot be done quickly, or they will change in
appearance. You imagine their slow progression across the paper, like a prisoner marking off days. A similar
sense of accumulation happens with Webster’s plaster cylinders which the artist is always adding to or
changing, carving away their surfaces in a manner that makes them seem eroded and gouged by time like the
rocky hills of the Burren.
Kelly Klaasmeyer (2019)
http://kellyklaasmeyer.com
Kaitlynn Webster’s sculptural and two-dimensional work initially strikes the viewer with an aesthetic minimalism. Utilizing a subdued palette of whites, creams, grays, and blacks she creates an almost clinical environment for the viewer to enter. Yet within the work there is a tension, marked by the repetitive employment of circular, cylindrical, and linear forms. Delicate nails pierce plaster cylindrical bodies over and over while minuscule circles and intricate linework overwhelm and crowd the surface of her large-scale drawings. Together, these elements seek to map a psyche marked by trauma. The abstraction of the work refuses to create dialogue about the traumatic events and instead speaks to the psychological aftermath. The physicality of the work refers to the the residual ways in which trauma reverberates through the physical body. Here, trauma’s effects may be abstracted in visual form, but they are anything but intangible constructs to only be thought of, rather they invade the viewers space and demand material presence, just as trauma itself permeates through the actual body. Within the work lies an urgent message about the need for a more nuanced conversation surrounding trauma and layered approaches to the care of those individuals in the face of medical practices that still often view and treat the body and mind as separate entities.
Morgan Madison (2018)
www.noreallyimallwrite.com
Meditative space [...] unfolds in the work of Kaitlynn Webster. Through large-scale,
immersive drawing and sculptural installation she creates space for the viewer to navigate a
dialogue between active engagement and quiet reflection. Her use of repetitive mark
making in drawing and sculpture evokes ritual as a process of catharsis and transformation.
Activated through installation, the distilled formal elements in her work create a spatial
dynamic that fully encompasses the viewer.
Conor McGrady (2019)
Dean, Burren College of Art
http://www.conormcgrady.com
Time is central Kaitlynn Webster’s work, a lot of it is required to make the marks that fill her large drawing and each mark becomes a record of the time it took to make it. Looking at her expansive drawing, the viewer is
struck with the repetition of the ink strokes that fill the page. The brushed square marks start dark and
gradually fade as the ink runs out, and then the brush is reloaded to begin the process again. There is
something very contemplative about the strokes, they cannot be done quickly, or they will change in
appearance. You imagine their slow progression across the paper, like a prisoner marking off days. A similar
sense of accumulation happens with Webster’s plaster cylinders which the artist is always adding to or
changing, carving away their surfaces in a manner that makes them seem eroded and gouged by time like the
rocky hills of the Burren.
Kelly Klaasmeyer (2019)
http://kellyklaasmeyer.com
Kaitlynn Webster’s sculptural and two-dimensional work initially strikes the viewer with an aesthetic minimalism. Utilizing a subdued palette of whites, creams, grays, and blacks she creates an almost clinical environment for the viewer to enter. Yet within the work there is a tension, marked by the repetitive employment of circular, cylindrical, and linear forms. Delicate nails pierce plaster cylindrical bodies over and over while minuscule circles and intricate linework overwhelm and crowd the surface of her large-scale drawings. Together, these elements seek to map a psyche marked by trauma. The abstraction of the work refuses to create dialogue about the traumatic events and instead speaks to the psychological aftermath. The physicality of the work refers to the the residual ways in which trauma reverberates through the physical body. Here, trauma’s effects may be abstracted in visual form, but they are anything but intangible constructs to only be thought of, rather they invade the viewers space and demand material presence, just as trauma itself permeates through the actual body. Within the work lies an urgent message about the need for a more nuanced conversation surrounding trauma and layered approaches to the care of those individuals in the face of medical practices that still often view and treat the body and mind as separate entities.
Morgan Madison (2018)
www.noreallyimallwrite.com