19 February - 10 March 2009
about the exhibition
Kati Thamo is a highly skilled printmaker who creates imaginative and allegorical works.A superb colourist, her prints exude a richness of tone and unusual textural quality.Within this collection of new work Kati has also ventured into sculpture, using the cast bronze medium. There are several series within this exhibition but all are underpinned by a rich vein of visual narrative and a deep concern with human behaviour and relationships. In many of her graphic works Kati invents imaginative realms that are inhabited by a fanciful cast of anthropomorphic characters. In some series these characters become mechanised, illustrating an anti-consumerist inversion of the ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ theme. Invoking the spirit of the theatrical, especially the play ‘Waiting for Godot’ by Samuel Beckett, Kati casts her hybrid beings as the protagonists of sequential scenes that observe small dramas played out in their various encounters and pursuits, expressing conflicting aspects of human behaviour; the absurd, the ludicrous, the playful and the hopeful. Like Beckett she presents us with open ended scenes in which a poignant emptiness is as important as the dialogue. By modelling her characters in bronze Kati draws them out of the imaginary and into our own world, encouraging us to see their interactions as our own.
Kati Thamo has undertaken degrees at both Edith Cowan University, WA, and the University of Tasmania (Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours). She has been the recipient of many awards including the 2003 Major Open Award at the Western Australian Printmedia Awards, the Gallery 500 Award at the Albany Art Prize in 2004, and most recently the Open Award in the Albany Art Prize in 2007. In 2000, and again in 2006 and 2008, Kati was a finalist in the prestigious Silk Cut Award. Kati’s work is represented in the collections of the Print Council of Australia, Charles Darwin University, Charles Sturt University, Murdoch University, Burnie Regional Art Gallery and Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery amongst others.