Kate Coyne’s work questions how the purity of substance connects to an authentic sense of the body and being.
The work addresses the physical and mental embodiment of the abject, ‘waiting’ and the female ageing body. Temporality, the progression of past, present and future is inherent, with polyurethane foam discolouring over time, and gravity taking over form and identity as it does with an ageing, sagging body.
An optimistic strength of relinquished control permeates her work. There is a physical transformation over time, obvious process and a psychological intensity that emerges between the creation and the final work.
The language of materials and process have been considered through her research into American sculptor John Chamberlain, his practice and use of polyurethane foam, and her re-reading of Post Minimalist sculpture as embodying the transformation of materials and the human body.
Philosopher Judith Butler’s theories provide the link to explain the fluidity of gender and sexuality over time. Feminist theories of ‘women’s time’ and ‘becoming’ provide hooks to visually represent the ‘unfolding of time’ in Kate’s studio practice.
Kate’s current artworks are of a large scale, utilising ‘queen’-sized foam mattresses. The works embody the ageing female form, and a feminist view of time and gender. In an increasingly heterogenous and fluid world Kate is interested in exploring the relationship between gender and time in the ordinary, mundane world of lived experience.
Kate Coyne graduated from Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney in 2019 when she was awarded a Bachelor of Visual Arts with 1st Class Honours. In the same year Kate was also the recipient of the 2019 Artereal Gallery Mentorship Award, an annual prize given to one graduating Honours student from SCA. Kate was also the recipient of the 2017 Sydney College of the Arts Undergraduate Painting Prize, and the 2018 Fauvette Memorial Artists Exchange Scholarship which allowed her to spend a semester in Boston at Massachusetts College ofArt and Design.
As a promising emerging artist, Kate’s work has been included in a number of group exhibitions. She has also been a finalist in the Ravenswood Art Prize (Emerging Artist), the Women’s Art Prize and the Mosman Art Prize.
