Kim Paton
Utility is a proposition
Kim Paton has (half jokingly) suggested that a next step in her practice might be a building apprenticeship. With the scale and complexity of her recent built structures and the way their conceptual development and material form straddles both contemporary art practice and an analysis of the built environment, this may be more on the money than it first sounded.
Everything thought and remembered (2007) is Paton’s response to an invitation to make a work for City Gallery Wellington’s Reading Room which is a space used for the presentation of resource material (books, journals, bibliographies, audio visual presentations) relating to the current exhibition. It also functions as a space to stop, to think, to rest, before heading back into an exhibition.
While Paton’s structure is made for the space, central to the artist’s concept is that the work has a life beyond this exhibition. It is built to last and its positioning on skids reinforces its mobility and potential for future use. Paton’s structure sits empty as a proposition or challenge as to what its future use will be. Its life beyond this context will be determined by the needs of the next user and the site they have at hand—possibilities are numerous: a roof-top bar, a mobile library, a shelter etc. Her earlier works share this interest in functionality and the sometimes slippery relationship between art and design objects. All We Have Is Now (2005), a multi-level stage structure which filled the span of a space in Christchurch’s The Physics Room, featured a cantilevered platform that invited use, but gave no suggestion as to what might be performed or enacted. Living Room (2006) comprised a suite of flat-pack wooden components and coloured squabs that could be assembled to make multi-use seats and table platforms.
Nothing is wasted, ‘economy of means’ is at play throughout the entire structure of Everything thought and remembered. The wall structures use single sheets of plywood, with areas cut out to form the floor of the main structure. While donated new materials form the core of the work, it is clad and roofed entirely from recycled materials which have been sourced through in-kind transactions including donations, special deals, and under-the-table favours, from a broad range of sources: industry, cultural organisations, and formal recycling programmes. Paton explores different economies of trade and barter and the ever growing phenomenon of ‘new material waste’ through her use of materials that are considered no longer ‘useful’.
Heather Galbraith
Kim Paton artist bio:
Born Christchurch, 1979
Lives and works in Wellington
Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours), School of Fine Arts, Massey University, Wellington
Selected solo exhibitions include: 'All We Have Is Now', The Physics Room, Christchurch (2005); 'All We Have Is Now', The Engine Room, Wellington (2005); 'Time Will Break The World', Enjoy Public Art Gallery, Wellington (2003).
Selected group exhibitions include: 'Sister City', Blindside, Melbourne (2006); 'The Bed You Lie In', Artspace, Auckland (2004); 'Milky Way Bar', Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, Wellington (2004).
Image credits:
Kim Paton
Everything thought and remembered 2007
pine plywood, dimensional timber, aluminium, recycled materials (pvc roofing, eucalyptus tongue and groove flooring, tin, pine plywood, dimensional timber, acrylic, aluminium, colorati board, canvas, plastic)
Courtesy of the artist