Katherine Nuñez: a growth or a graveyard
In a society driven by, and even glorifies wage labor, work is seen as an activity done to get financial recompense ensuring stable access to basic goods and services. Work then is a kind of promise: hard work if done in dedication and grit assures the reward of a good life. This is the assurance that a consumer-capitalist city that projects itself as an emerging global city offers its work force, despite its Third World realities.
"a growth or a graveyard" is a work that tries to look at corrosion, deterioration, and decay, but articulated through the visuals of growth created by employing minute but accumulative gestures of craftwork like embroidery, crochet, beadwork, and dyeing.
In "a growth or a graveyard", organic forms seem to flourish in an abrasive and pathetic kind of growth, blooming by feeding on dreams, desires, and fantasies built on the tapestry of the corrosive myth of hard work, on exhausted labouring bodies, and on the gloss of synthetic man-made materials -from plastics to consumer dreams.
Artist Bio:
Katherine Nuñez was born on 1992 in Metro Manila, Philippines. She finished her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts (Studio Arts - Painting) from the College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines, Diliman in 2013 where she graduated cum laude.
Most of her works are extracted from personal everyday encounters with the demands of contemporary life. Her works venture on abstract themes such as mortality, desire, relationships and identity which she connects to the global, picnoleptic, digital and consumerist backdrop of today. She employs crafts such as sewing, crochet, and scrapbooking because she is attracted to their meditative, slow, domestic and decorative properties. She is interested in forms that are usually perceived as everyday or mundane to introduce an element of familiarity which she tries to manipulate.
She has exhibited her works in Venice, Jakarta, Bangkok, and Dubai. A notable highlight in her artistic practice is her participation in the 57th Venice Biennale "Viva Arte Viva" in 2017. She also recently participated in Craft Taitung 2018 as resident artist. On 2019, she became the director / team head of 98B COLLABoratory, an artist-run space and initiative based in Escolta, Manila.
She currently lives and works in Manila.
"a growth or a graveyard" is a work that tries to look at corrosion, deterioration, and decay, but articulated through the visuals of growth created by employing minute but accumulative gestures of craftwork like embroidery, crochet, beadwork, and dyeing.
In "a growth or a graveyard", organic forms seem to flourish in an abrasive and pathetic kind of growth, blooming by feeding on dreams, desires, and fantasies built on the tapestry of the corrosive myth of hard work, on exhausted labouring bodies, and on the gloss of synthetic man-made materials -from plastics to consumer dreams.
Artist Bio:
Katherine Nuñez was born on 1992 in Metro Manila, Philippines. She finished her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts (Studio Arts - Painting) from the College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines, Diliman in 2013 where she graduated cum laude.
Most of her works are extracted from personal everyday encounters with the demands of contemporary life. Her works venture on abstract themes such as mortality, desire, relationships and identity which she connects to the global, picnoleptic, digital and consumerist backdrop of today. She employs crafts such as sewing, crochet, and scrapbooking because she is attracted to their meditative, slow, domestic and decorative properties. She is interested in forms that are usually perceived as everyday or mundane to introduce an element of familiarity which she tries to manipulate.
She has exhibited her works in Venice, Jakarta, Bangkok, and Dubai. A notable highlight in her artistic practice is her participation in the 57th Venice Biennale "Viva Arte Viva" in 2017. She also recently participated in Craft Taitung 2018 as resident artist. On 2019, she became the director / team head of 98B COLLABoratory, an artist-run space and initiative based in Escolta, Manila.
She currently lives and works in Manila.
