Speech notes by Edwina Bartlem for opening:
Chaco Kato – Pulp Fiction
Gallery 3 – Craft Victoria
28 April 2011
A bit of history about Chaco Kato:
Chaco Kato was born in Sendai City in Japan and has had a passion for drawing, painting and creative writing since she was a child. She completed an art course at the School of the Museum of Fina Arts in Boston before moving to Melbourne in 1996, where she did a Master of Fine Arts at the VCA. Chaco has been based in Melbourne since this time and has worked extensively both nationally and internationally.
I’ve know Chaco Kato for about four years and in that time I worked with her several times on art projects as an individual and with the Slow Art Collective. When I first met her I was working as the Curator of the Counihan Gallery In Brunswick.
I have a very fond memory of being in the Gallery with Chaco as she slowly created a drawing of a garden made of dress-maker’s pins and grass harvested from her back yard across one of the walls of the gallery. This installation emerged over a three week period and Chaco worked quietly and consistently in the Gallery. It seemed like quite a meditative experience for the artist and gallery visitors were intrigued to witness an artist’s working process.
I think this example gives a small insight into Chaco’s art practice.
When I reflect upon Chaco’s art practice, several things immediately come to mind:
Her slow, contemplative and detailed art-making process
The ephemeral nature of her installations
Her resourceful use of mundane and organic materials
And the captivating beauty of her works
I’m not going to discuss all of these aspects of her work in depth, but I would like to draw your attention to a few features that I find compelling.
Site-Responsive & Ephemeral
Chaco’s artworks are frequently site-responsive and ephemeral in nature.
They evolve in the space and elements are either added or refined after the exhibition opens.
In some instances, these alterations are subtle, in others they are more overt – in fact, a creative evolution of the work in the exhibition space is the actual point of the work.
Chaco’s works are strongly influenced by the exhibition space and her relationship to this space. She has said to me that she feels that it is important for her to, “spend time in the space and to gain a gradual understanding of this environment”, so that she can “have a dialogue with the space.”
This is an important insight into Chaco’s work because her installations are very much about a creative and conceptual exchange.
They involve dialogues:
between the artist and the space
between the artist and the materials
and ultimately, between the viewer and the artist through the installation
They are also concerned with the dialogue and relationship between humans and the world more generally.
Themes and Materials
A recurring thematic concern in Chaco Kato’s work is the cycle of life. Her works frequently focus on Life Cycles: birth, life, growth, death, decay and regeneration.
This current installation, ironically called ‘Pulp Fiction’, deals with this theme partly by suspending decay and re-using food scraps (including the skin, pulp and seeds of fruit and vegetables) as art materials.
The use of humble and organic materials is not new to Chaco’s art practice. In fact, she frequently uses these types of materials in her work – previous works have employed grass, string and cotton thread as raw materials. Yet, Chaco always manages to transform these humble materials into something intricate and special. In this case, biodegradable and once edible materials have been threaded and assembled together into detailed drawings and elaborate constructions.
When I first entered Chaco’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ installation, I was struck by the playful and whimsical quality of the work. There was a strong sense of entering into a miniature world like Gulliver traveling through Lilliput. This wondrous world is a place where strange garden creatures rule and leave their ‘snail trail’ drawings behind or get caught in the wind like a Dandelions.
This is also a fragile world that could easily disintegrate and start to fall apart – a metaphor for the world at large. A micro view of a macro issue, if you like.
Philosophy
In a sense, this installation has emerged out of a philosophy of paying closer attention to the everyday things that surround us.
In the process of creating the small elements that make up this installation, Chaco attempted to pay more attention to the materials that she was using.
She started to focus on the shape, texture, taste and structure of the foods that she was eating.
Consequently, she started to appreciate what she was eating to a greater extent.
I’m sure if you asked her, she would probably be able to tell you the average number of seeds in an apple or orange because this is part of the back-storey of this installation.
Through this installation, Chaco is inviting us to pay more attention to these materials and to consider how the ordinary can be transformed into the extraordinary. Her installation reminds us, in a gentle and poetic way, about the importance of looking at the world through fresh eyes.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank Chaco Kato for this installation and to declare the exhibition officially open.
Edwina Bartlem
Exhibitions Manager, State Library of Victoria