Kate Fitzharris: Companion Piece

Kate Fitzharris: Companion Piece
30 September–29 October 2022
RDS Gallery, 6 Castle Street, Dunedin
W, Th, F: 11am-5pm and by appointment
For an appointment, email us at contact@rdsgallery.co.nz

The artist Kate Fitzharris leads a thoughtful and well-examined life in Waitati with her husband and two children, working part-time as a librarian and exhibiting her art around the country at a number of galleries, while quietly building a national reputation as a New Zealand artist of note. She is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies, most recently the 2021 Premier Award at the Ceramics New Zealand Diamond Jubilee Exhibition held in Dunedin at the Railway Station and a 2021-2022 Waiclay Exhibition Merit Award (Waikato Museum). Kate uses her ceramics to share her values with others, to develop a common sensibility with those around her. She views her involvement in clay as a way to reflect upon 21st century culture. She explains: "Clay … it’s the earth … geological time … forces way beyond our powers. It’s also really ’domestic' in that we use cups and bowls … and toilets. I am interested in both those histories.” This engagement in the materiality of ceramics, “clay,” provides her a means of staying honest: "For me to be healthy and happy, I need to remember I am a person in the world, rather than getting lost in my head. This also … links to environmental concerns––that we are part of this world, not separate from it.”

Drawing on her New Zealand childhood among two generations of creative women, and experiences such as her 2019 residency in Japan, Kate has developed a distinctive style, producing objects that are immediately at home in a domestic setting. Her abstract, and implicitly human, figures have an eery haunting quality, reminiscent of the traditional Japanese Kokeshi doll, beloved around the world, which Kate herself encountered in Japan. Reflecting on Kate’s creations, Cecilia Novero underlines their relations to the quotidian as “things” designed to accompany us––companions––that we look upon every day, our version of the Roman Lares and Penates. The materiality of these figures as of the earth––clay––resonates with contemporary concerns about the planet on which and through which we live. Novero writes: “Not only then do these everyday objects erupt in our lifetime from time immemorial; they also bring to the table, in all their beauty, the traces of the deep entanglements that make life––and stories––possible.”

References:
Cecilia Novero, “Messmates at the Table!: From Companion Pieces to Companion Species,” KATE FITZHARRIS: COMPANION PIECE, ed. Alistair Fox and Hilary Radner (Dunedin, NZ: RDS Gallery, 2022), npn.

Images:
KATE FITZHARRIS,"Spot," 2022, ceramic, 320mm
KATE FITZHARRIS, "Local," 2022, ceramic, 315mm
KATE FITZHARRIS, "Milk Jug, " 2022, ceramic, 115mm
KATE FITZHARRIS, "Companion," 2022, ceramic, 245mm
KATE FITZHARRIS, "Blessing Hand," 2022, ceramic, 175mm
KATE FITZHARRIS, "Finger Grooves," 2022, ceramic, 225mm
KATE FITZHARRIS, "Night Vase," 2022, ceramic, 360mm
KATE FITZHARRIS, "Tall Grey," 2022, ceramic, 350mm