Kim Sutherland is a London based maker who combines metalwork with material research in the creation of inscribed works - wall-based meditations in metal - inspired by historical ornament and sacred artefact.
Kim’s work inhabits the territory between object making and drawing through an ongoing exploration of the ancient technique of intaglio etching - the ‘bite’ of line into metal – which allows her to create the symbolically ‘charged’ surfaces that sit at the heart of her practice.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My practice spans the disciplines of metalwork, drawing and printmaking and work quite often sits on the line between two and three dimensions.
Everything starts with drawing, it is central to how I work, acting as reference, content and archive to the objects created. Intricate, detailed drawing is combined with fragments and imagery pulled from a personal, collected archive of photographs, objects and mark-making. Work begins with historical and visual research and is then developed intuitively through a combination of drawing and making, assemblage and collage, carving and fabrication, working and reworking. I value the history of the making, the marks and traces that are left on the work from this process, for me they embody the heart and soul of the work.
My work explores the notion of ‘tenemos’, or sacred and circumscribed space. The point of departure for the work is to be found in artefacts and imagery that attempt to understand and honour an ‘other’ territory. It references the poetic expression of mathematical and scientific treatise as well as sacred geometry, alchemic diagrams, mandalas and temple architecture. These inscribed metal artefacts can be seen to function as ‘maps’, in concentrated, coded form, that allow us to tap into an interior world, or into a collective source wisdom
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BIOGRAPHY
Kim Sutherland studied for a BA(Hons) in 3D Design at WSCAD (now UCA) Farnham, specialising in Metals. She went on to establish her practice as a maker before completing her MA (Metalwork and Silversmithing) at the Royal College of Art. Kim is a senior academic with extensive teaching experience gained over 25 years in Art and Design. She is passionate about craft education and the passing on of skill and knowledge to the next generation of makers. In 2004, together with fellow maker Jacky Oliver, she established the influential Design Crafts Degree course at De Montfort University, going on to co-direct and develop this programme for a further 8 years. In 2017 she re-established her practice as metalworker, designer and material researcher, working with galleries, interior designers and private clients from her central London Studio.
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