Curator's Note
Sitting on the grass surrounded by trees, Katherine Rutecki’s large cocoon like sculpture looks almost benign. The sun shimmers off it's wire structure and it sits as if resting in the dappled sun. Like all good traps it is not until one enters that it transforms.
A construction of her own doing and willingly entered, this trap manipulates the artist’s body as she attempts to negotiate it. It envelops her with its soft curves yet it’s cage like structure gives little comfort. It is
not long before the artist seeks to escape.
Trap is a sculptural performance performed in silence, filmed without colour or audio with the resulting films exhibited in a gallery with no visitors. Performed first in December 2016 this version sees the sculpture, made afresh for each reperformance, now crushed, sealed and no longer unusable, as no more than a remnant. Now redundant it is cast aside. This new performance of Trap appears in gallery shush in film format only.
The curation of the space seeks to amplify this solitude by reducing the exhibition down to only one element – that of the artist’s struggle with her self-made trap. All props, furniture and light have been taken away.
Walking into the gallery everything is dark. As your eyes adjust you see a number of screens, some hidden; some in full view. These screens sit on the floor in pairs silently replaying the performance over and over. Each pairing of screens sit at a different angle, some are in conversation with each other, others play in tandem. All play to the non-existent audience.
Laura Bradshaw-Heap
October 2018