Katy English
I divide my time between Cushendun, a small village on the North East coast of Ireland and London and my work consistently refers to the Antrim landscape, using drawing to investigate the natural world both seen and unseen. In an age where images can be instantly captured and transmitted I draw to slow down the act of seeing and allow the covert forces of growth and mathematics to reveal themselves.
The work explores patterns, forms and recurrences in nature. There is an extraordinary economy in the way that successful systems manifest form at all scales of the physical world, whether it be synaptic links and cosmic nebula or the compound lens of a flies eye and the geometry of the Giants Causeway. Through various media and processes much of my work is involved with exploring these systems or creating alternatives. My imagery moves freely from representational to abstract moving between atomic to cosmic. Where and how the I (eye) fits in to the vast abundance of time and space may be at the route of everything I make.
Over many years of working with children I have been influenced by the straightforward methods of communication they employ in their drawing, in some ways similar to the language of scientific diagrams and map making. How ever much I invest my practice with significances and private meditations, I hope that the primary intention of the work, to look in wonder at the world, is lucid and accessible to everyone.
Selected Exhibitions and Commissioned Work
2018 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize - UK Touring exhibition
2016 Drawing as Exploring - Solo show Roe Valley Arts Centre Limavady
2015 Between Inside and Out - Group Show - Made in Greenwich Gallery London
2015 The Byre Show, Cloughmills NI
2013 Artists House. The English Family Collective, Brixton
2013 Group Show: Urmston Burnett Gallery, Salisbury
2012 Group Show Jeanie Avent, Dulwich London
2006 - 2016 Annual Dulwich Open House
2005 The O Project - Group show in conjunction with Oxford Astrophysics Department
1998 Your Shore My Horizon II Collaborative exhibition with Philip Maltman
McLaurin Gallery Ayr
1997 Your Shore My Horizon I Collaborative exhibition with Philip Maltman
Clink Street Gallery London
1995 Art Now, Alexandra Palace (prize winner)
1993 The Watersfield Ring - outdoor sculpture commission
1992 London Group (commended)
1991 Pod - outdoor sculpture commission
1990 London Group (commended)
1989 Powis Place. London Solo show
1986 The Crypt - London Solo show
1984 -1998 numerous group shows and open studios
1981-84 BA Fine Art (sculpture) Camberwell School of Art
Other projects:
In 1995 Katy English co-founded Makendoo, a company specialising in creative workshops for children. Over the last twenty years she has run workshops, created participatory installations and community projects and sculptures all over the UK.
In 2006 Katy set up the Cushendun Building Preservation Trust to covert a former church into an Arts and Heritage Centre. She is closely involved in ‘Cushendun’s Big Arts Weekend’ an annual Arts Festival in Northern Ireland. Both projects aim to improve access to arts and heritage and natural heritage in the Glens of Antrim.