Kate Budduse unknown, possibly ritual

Kate Budduse unknown, possibly ritual

Oct 17–Nov 15, 2014 William Busta Gallery2731 Prospect AvenueCleveland OH 44115

W williambustagallery.comT 216.298.9071E bustagallery@gmail.com

Cover:

dark ribbon, 2014

wax, graphite powder;

1 x 1.25 x 3 in.

Top:

roller, 2014

bronze; 1 x 1 x 2.5 in.

Second Row:

ruff, 2014

wax, graphite powder;

0.5 x 1.75 x 1.75 in.

open-bottomed basket, 2014

wax, graphite powder;

1.5 x 1.75 x 1 in.

Third Row:

long limpet, 2014

wax, graphite;

1.25 x 1.25 x 1.75 in.

empty peapod, 2014

wax, graphite powder;

1.25 x 3.5 x 0.5 in.

Some objects are defined dramatically by human absence. The banal things we use or carry—our keys, fingernail clippers, coins, hairpins, lipstick, maybe a flash drive—seem very different from similarly private artifacts, labeled and dusty in a museum or antique store cabinet, which may once have been just as commonplace but were left behind long ago, abandoned in another world. These are lost things, or things which notably have lost their owners, objects marooned in the present, bereft of context. Whether perceived as garbage or junk or archeological treasures, they’re orphaned, inflected with mystery – clues, casting odd shadows, posing questions about identity and being. And like ourselves they seem to possess imponderable, psychic dimensions.

Further distinctions are imposed by scale. The “superpower” of small, intimate things is to infiltrate and transform from within, and to speak of the potential of growth. Like a lock of hair or a fingernail, such an object carries the seed of its origins. Liminal objects (as the artist Kate Budd sometimes calls them) are found at the threshold of changing conditions, partly woven from biological need, but also weathered and encrusted by time and climate, finally resembling and shading into the long dreams of human culture. Such things are the subjects of Kate Budd’s enigmatic, myth-inflected sculpture. Her exhibit use unknown, possibly ritual consists of very small, talisman-like works of art fashioned from wax and coated in graphite, or cast in bronze. None of these are wider or taller than three inches, any could fit easily in the hand or pocket. One round, undulating waxen circlet titled “ruff” looks like a sort of faerie collar, others, like “purse” and “sea bean (bronzed),” or “dark cowrie,” seem like miniature containers made from nuts or shells, carryalls produced by a vanished, magical race. Most are ribbed or nubbed or pierced, touchable (at least one wants to touch them) yet suspect, to be kept carefully in a pocket or a box and rediscovered from time to time, reminders of half-forgotten epiphanies.

Kate Budd grew up near Aberdeen, a large city on the eastern coast of Scotland where the Dee and the Don rivers flow into the North Sea. It’s easy to imagine that her work derives in part from childhood experiences, gathering cold garlands of kelp and the relics of other sea flora like the ones called “Mermaid’s Purses” that wash up on those shores. Her nut-like sculptures shown at William Busta reflect about the earth and gestation, and also connect to archeological discoveries in the region. Puzzling, intricately carved and knobbed stone spheres, thought to have been made by Pictish peoples who lived in Scotland from at least the Late Bronze Age up until the brink of historical times have been found in quite large numbers, especially near Aberdeen. Like Budd’s sculptures, most of those oddities measure less than three inches in diameter.

Kate Budd: Tide and Time

seabean (bronzed), 2014

bronze; 1 x 1.5 x 1 in.

Throughout her career wax has been a primary medium for Budd, with its subsurface luminosity and fleshy texture, at once yielding and alien, as if infused with moonlight. In the past her works have often seemed almost extraterrestrial, but these latest objects have a hint of the familiar about them, like memories that emerge only partially into awareness, the hollowed out spaces where usage once thrived. Perhaps it is the well-worn tint and curve of her bronzes in particular that warm toward the human. Budd remarked about her dully shimmering, pebble-like metal objects, “Bronze is softer than you think. I can polish these just with my fingers. In the Vatican there’s a bronze statue of St. Peter (by Arnolfo di Cambio) – its foot is smooth from all the people who touch it…”

Budd’s sculptures seem polished in a similar way, by years and hands without number, or darkened by time and the sea. Like St. Peter’s foot, also, they convey an aura of transformation. Her wax “empty pea-pod” is at least as light in weight as its natural counterpart, but translated, like the bodies preserved in ash at Pompeii. Her small bronzes by contrast have a clear solidity and weight to them, and glow as if with interior heat. In Budd’s hands both mediums seem instinct with traces of faiths lost and found, smoldering in time-resistant forms.

—Douglas Max Utter

Education

1995 MFA, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

1990 BA (Hons.) in Fine Art; Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, Scotland

Professional Experience

1998– Associate Professor of Art, Myers School of Art, current The University of Akron, OH

1995–98 Lecturer, The University of Texas, Austin, TX

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2011 Cabinet, William Busta Gallery, Cleveland, OH

Talisman, Olin Gallery, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH

2008 Tableau, William Busta Gallery, Cleveland, OH

2005 Kate Budd, The Carnegie Galleries, Covington, KY

2003 Honey, The College of Wooster Art Museum, Wooster, OH

Kate Budd: Recent Work, Hiestand Galleries, Miami University, Oxford, OH

2000 On-Site Ohio: Kate Budd, Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH

Waxworks, The Sculpture Center, Cleveland, OH

1998 Thorny, Rudolph Poissant Gallery, Houston, TX

1996 Evidence, FOVA Gallery, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

Selected Group Exhibitions

2014 Bioforms + Metacosms, Harris Stanton Gallery, Akron, OH

Hephaestos Challenged: Seven Woman Sculptors, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH

25 Artists/25 Years, William Busta Gallery, Cleveland, OH

2012 Aberdeen Artists’ Society Annual Exhibition, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen, Scotland

Magnitude 7, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH

2011 Pleasures of Matter, The Main Gallery, Kent State University–Stark, Canton, OH

Fluid Forms & Fleshy Coats, legation, a gallery, Cleveland, OH

Kate Budd

Born 1969, Kenya Lives in Akron, OH

katebudd.net

2010 After the Pedestal, The Sculpture Center, Cleveland, OH

Ceres Ninth National Juried Exhibition, Ceres Gallery, New York, NY

The 25th Tallahassee International, Florida State University, Tallahassee

2007 Celebration of Creativity, Ohio Arts Council Riffe Gallery, Columbus, OH; Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati, OH

2006 The 9th International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition, The University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI (Traveling exhibition)

2005 The NEO Show, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

2002 Kate Budd: Fetish, Edith Baker Gallery, Dallas, TX

Selected Awards + Residencies

2011 Individual Excellence Award, Ohio Arts Council (also 2006, 2003)

2008 Ohio Arts Council/Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship

2006 Jentel Residency Fellowship, Banner, WY

Selected Collections

Progressive Insurance Casualty Company, Cleveland, OH

Wright State University, Dayton, OH

Process Creative Studios, Cleveland, Ohio

flange, 2014

bronze; 1 x 1 x 1 in.