When Seams Become Audible

One Thoresby Street, Nottingham, UK
Plaster, ceramic, steel, wood, polystyrene, latex, rachet strap
2020

In 'When Seams Become Audible' Fitz presents a series of objects responding to the Attic Gallery at OTS, with the works on display being the result of a 6-week long residency. The turned, pushed, pulled and suspended forms work as a reactivation of their surroundings, beginning to interact with the architecture and challenging our understanding of how we experience space and everything that comes with it. Fitz offers an invitation to resee these places we inhabit through fresh eyes, creating a new kind of imagined and activated environment.

Katharina Fitz BLOOM
Katharina Fitz BLOOM
A seam. A connector. A join. Audible. A trembling. A process. (Sarah Tutt, 2020)

On viewing WHEN SEAMS BECOME AUDIBLE, one immediately knows this work is conceived by Fitz. Signature acts of translation and transformation are visible - the space is filled with an architectural and industrial vernacular; elemental forms are honed from the space in which they sit; there is raw yet precise use of unadulterated materials.

This work is physical. The labour of manual processes is tangible - turning, pulling, pressing, carving, extracting, pouring, wrapping, peeling and casting. They require the body of the artist as a tool, as energy and as a force. A tight taxonomy of colour and texture holds the elements together. The palate is familiar but developed - exhumed from the materials themselves – with muted, dusty tones of the flesh of plaster, unglazed ceramic, unadulterated metal and wood and the pale skin of latex and hessian.




Katharina Fitz BLOOM
Katharina Fitz BLOOM
Katharina Fitz BLOOM
Katharina Fitz BLOOM
Katharina Fitz BLOOM
Katharina Fitz BLOOM
Katharina Fitz BLOOM
Katharina Fitz BLOOM
Katharina Fitz BLOOM
Katharina Fitz BLOOM
On UNDOING and RECLAMATION (Sarah Tutt, 2020)

On the 1st November 2020 at 2pm, WHEN SEAMS BECOME AUDIBLE came to an abrupt Covid-regulatory end. Fitz made the decision to de-commission the work in situ and live-stream it over Instagram. Two time-lapsed cameras transmitted split screen images as the artist butchered and disembowelled the central element Window. The making of this heavy, bolted, hung and skewered work involved force and hard labour, so the de-construction was bound to be physical. A syncopated duet of smashing, drilling, ripping, sawing and hammering underscored this performative eulogy. The ferocity of Fitz’s actions shook our view. Window did not go quietly. It swayed and rattled its chains as its body parts were strewn across the floor. There was a feeling Fitz may have created something stronger than herself, but her sheer force transformed the once-was into a material wasteland before our eyes. As Window was turned from body to rubble, a shift in visual landscape brought with it a shift in visual hierarchy: the unmade over the made, potential over the realised, artist over the work. We are used to seeing Fitz’s force within her work, here we witness it over it. The artist is present. Without script. Without score. Uncertain.

(I am currently working on a book publication of 'When Seams Become Audible' which will include the full essays by Sarah Tutt)


Katharina Fitz BLOOM
Katharina Fitz BLOOM