Katri Walker
Profile/CV
Biography
b. 1978 Edinburgh, Scotland
Since 2002, Katri has been living between Mexico City and Glasgow, Scotland where she graduated from the Master of Fine Art programme at Glasgow School of Art in 2007.
She works predominantly with video installation and has exhibited in group shows and had her work screened throughout the U.K, in Mexico, Australia, Iceland, The Netherlands, Venezuela, Estonia, Italy, Germany, Sweden and the U.S.A.
Recent projects include a solo exhibition, North West, at Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen, Scotland in March 2011, a CCA Walls of Light Moving Image Commission, screened across the UK from October 2010 onwards as part of the handover celebrations of the Commonwealth Games from Delhi to Glasgow and an international touring group exhibition, Patria o Libertad! The Rhetorics of Patriotism, curated by Paco Barragán.
Upcoming projects include a 3-person video exhibition alongside Stina Wirfelt and Raquel Mendez at Galería Arte talCual in Mexico City in June 2011 which will then tour to Gallery Sopro in Lisbon, Portugal in October 2011. In August 2011, North West will travel to the Edinburgh Art Festival.
Katri is currently Artist-in-Residence at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, as part of the RSA Residencies for Scotland 2011 programme.
Artist Statement
Through my work I investigate and celebrate the fertile space between contemporary art and documentary filmmaking. Subject matters vary widely but the common thread throughout is always the desire to explore new modes of reflection in a world in which reality is never a static given, but a complex set of relations.
I would identify my practice as functioning in relation to portraiture – which has been and remains a fundamental genre within visual art – and a documentary mode of presentation. I see the exploration of subjective realities as an important way into more fully understanding our contemporary global predicaments. I work predominantly with multi-channel audio-visual installations, creating intimate works that document the physical and emotional geographies of my subjects.
New work always starts with a serendipitous moment that catches my attention, be it an encounter with a person, place or community, a newspaper article, a book or a passing comment. I then take that moment and begin to build a network of associations through theoretical and visual research. The way in which the work evolves, and is ultimately resolved, is guided by both my own underlying creative and aesthetic intentions and by the occurrences, encounters, and environments that happen along the way. It is of equal importance to me, with each new project, to have a cogent conceptual and creative objective alongside being open to and embracing the unexpected.
I imbue my work with both playful and meaningful contradictions, always trying to maintain the awareness that everything contains its opposite. I look to capture the nuances between the ordinary and the extraordinary in the everyday, actively turning one into the other and vice-versa, be they embedded in passing moments, individuals or whole communities.
Website www.katriwalker.com
