EVACUATE, 2010

Mixed media installation with game feathers
120 x 400 x 350 cm

Kate MccGwire’s Evacuate plays with the historicism of the mansion - this time focusing on the “behind the scenes” world of the kitchens. Thousands of locally sourced bird feathers, each taken from a species regularly cooked in the house ovens, are reassembled to create a new, uncanny “creature”. Horrifyingly beautiful, the installation suggests a new (or perhaps ancient) and menacing presence emanating from the cast iron oven. Coiling, pluming and creeping through the kitchen, the work feels weighty, meaty. The visitor is at once taken by the gorgeousness of the piece itself - the assemblage of “common” feathers presented as something completely exotic - and the shame involved in discarding objects of beauty in favour of a perfunctory dinner.

- Excerpt from Tatton Park Biennial catalogue

Exhibited
Tatton Park Biennial, Cheshire, UK
'House of Beasts', Attingham Park, Shropshire, UK

Photos: Jonty Wilde