Taking Flight

From early beginnings crafting sculptures from birds’ feathers to her ambitious site-specific installations, enjoy the chance to hear about this artist’s journey.

Kate MccGwire (b. 1964) is a British, London-based artist who spent her childhood growing up on the Norfolk Broads. Her early memories of this distinctive landscape, dominated by its wetlands, serpentine waterways and wildlife, form the foundations of her practice.

Inspired by the cycles, patterns and dualities of nature, the artist uses feathers as her primary medium. She subjects her materials, which are commonly shed or discarded, to a labour-intensive process of collecting, sorting and cleaning to create muscular, writhing forms reminiscent of classical sculpture and creatures from mythology.

Her work is both abstract and organic, static yet full of movement. Of the dual nature of her sculptures and the different responses it provokes the artist has said:

‘My work is inspired by the water forming incredible patterns that are there one second and gone the next. Everything is fleeting on the water, it is beautiful but there is danger and treachery underneath the surface. I’m intrigued by that dichotomy.’