The Age Magazine: Homestyle
with Gilligan Grant Gallery

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Juxtapoz Online

Kate McCarthy's biggest critic is her son, who is quoted on her site: "Mummy's paintings are really weird and I don't even know what they are. We agree, but we love them anyway. The artist says her paintings are "things of comfort dressed up," and she uses pattern to inspire nostalgia in her viewers. With childlike shapes and mysterious figures, there is something uncanny about her paintings. They are at once familiar and strange. They feel cozy, they appear wrapped up like a gift, and they are definitely hiding something. Also of note is the fact that, while these paintings appear to be made with traditional materials, McCarthy sometimes incorporates coffee and cigarette smoke into the work. We also appreciate her use of texture and color. We're keeping an eye on this Aussie artist and her mysterious cast of characters. 
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Lost at E Minor

Interview with Lost at E Minor about The Fantastic Nest, Matthew Rachman Gallery, 2nd June 23rd July, 2017

Tasmania-based artist Kate McCarthy brings two art forms together – painting and embroidery – to create collages that are both cute and strange.
Inspired by her childhood, the Brisbane-born artist expresses her memories on the canvas using a combination of paint and thread. Her compositions depict surreal pillowy figures splashed with various paints, then lined with hand-stitching to add texture and character.
“McCarthy enjoys incorporating the traditional methods of embroidery into painting to welcome the conversation about the role of technical handicraft within contemporary art,” the Matthew Rachman Gallery wrote.
She’s exhibited her works in places like Germany, England, Australia, and now Chicago. In anticipation of McCarthy’s latest group exhibit, called The Fantastic Nest, we had a short chat with her about her work.

Hand-stitching is such a beautiful, but in some ways, lost art-form. How did you get into it and what excited you about the possibilities it presented?
“It is a bit of a lost art form, thankfully seeing a revival for a few reasons. As an adult and parent, my latest personal attraction toward it was determined by my family’s needs.
“It was a situation where I needed to tend to the kids but couldn’t have bulky paint gear and fumes in the house. Which then leads onto why embroidery has been traditionally a woman’s ‘role’- probably for those exact same practical reasons. Although maybe I should Google that.
“Once I delved into the art form, the possibilities were huge. Colour is so strong in thread, and so immediate. I have plans to make the creatures and furniture into free-standing sculptural form and animation.”

Your use of colours is sublime. What informs your colour selection?
“Thank you! My palette relies on deep, strong colours with complimentary pastels. I choose each colour in response to the last.
“So if I’ve used a pastel mint green, I’ll hover between a strong yellow or strawberry pink, as long as they look delicious next to each other. I always need a black, but steer away from brown and maroon! They remind me of school.”
You were a noted painter, before getting into embroidery. Tell us about your path towards art as a youngster and who you admired in the medium along the way.
“We were encouraged to be creative in any form as kids. 1970s Sesame Street and Jim Henson were huge in our lives. I always identified with the puppets and not the humans! I couldn’t stand it when The Muppet Show had humans on it.
“I have strong memories of being home from school, sewing together cut-up Chux dishcloths into snail shapes and stuffing them with more Chux. Canvas paintings have always begged for thread, which, for me, literally ‘ties’ my mediums together and serves as a metaphor for life.
“I love seeing my characters and their decorated home furnishings growing off the canvas into 3D form. The chairs are heavily threaded, both in real-life form and on the canvas. The stuffed toys that comfort us use thread, as do the clothes us humans and my creatures dress up in. I find thread a thing of comfort, with deep, ancient origins of caring, safety, comfort and self-expression.
“I remember seeing Brett Whiteley’s work as a kid at QAG and being blown away that you use could use anything with canvas. And realising early, too, that someone like Robert Crumb is just as relevant to art as a renaissance master. It told me that your style is your style and to be proud of it.”

Tell us what we can expect to see at The Fantastic Nest and what this exhibition says about your journey as an artist to where you are now?
“I’ve admired the gallery for a while now. I’m honoured to be exhibiting with them, especially as it takes the themes I’ve described above even further. The gallery is also a strong mid-century design space, which ties in with my themes of comfort and humanity (or creature-manity). We’ll have the works on canvas and the embroidered soft sculpture beautifully staged with the mid-century design pieces.”

Find out more about Kate McCarthy and her work here. Also, check out the Matthew Rachman Gallery website to know more about the upcoming exhibit, which runs from Friday, June 2 until Sunday, July 23.

​tasweekend for The Mercury, May 28-29, 2016

Controlled Chaos
Andrew Harper
tasweekend for The Mercury, May 28-29, 2016
 
Sometimes it’s all about style. Kate McCarthy’s art is strong and distinctive. She successfully pulls together chunks and fragments of images and ideas into a cohesive whole. Her paintings show controlled chaos, but it is her hilarious embroidered works which really drew my attention. These pieces represent a new direction for McCarthy, and it’s paid off. Each embroidered sculpture resembles a bizarre character created with a puzzling logic.
  McCarthy’s skill is to appear to have no control whatsoever in her use of random shapes, barely recognisable symbols and varying embroidery techniques. But in reality there is purpose.
  Each painting and embroidered sculpture works on its own, but seeing the individual pieces together in a show reveals an interesting rhythmic quality in McCarthy’s work. Materials and techniques appear and disappear from one image only to emerge again in a slightly different context. Textures and colours underline and expand on the ideas behind the images, and the result is fun, but not silly.
  McCarthy clearly trusts her instincts and is not afraid to go in a new direction, guided by her skills and a delirious, flexible lexicon of shapes and colours.
  There’s a peculiar echo of great Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky in some of the ways the forms and lines come together, but her art is also distinguished in a lack of a pretension. McCarthy makes art that’s laved with personal memories of childhood and the half-recalled excitement of making art for the first time. Her shift to embroidery seems to have brought her own exuberance out; it seems clear she’s had a good time making these works and that excitement translates to the viewer.

Widewalls Chicago

Kate McCarthy art has been exhibited all over the world including Germany, England, Australia, and now in Chicago, with a show titled The Fantastic Nest at Matthew Rachman Gallery. She is a Tasmania-based artist who brings together pastels, rainbows and fluffy animals to form collages that are cute and just a little bit twisted. She lives and works from the Bay of Fires on Tasmania’s East Coast. She relies on the memories triggered by her young sons, developing milestones for her imagery which is then transferred into the purest works of shapes, color and intent, full of mix media and patterns. Kate McCarthy’s biggest critic is her son, who is quoted on her site saying: “Mummy’s paintings are really weird and I don’t even know what they are.”

​Weaving Traditional Methods of Embroidery Into Painting
In the past, Kate McCarthy focused her practice purely on painting. However, as of late, the artist has directed her attention to modern soft sculpture and embroidery. She enjoys incorporating the traditional methods of embroidery into a painting to welcome the conversation about the role of technical handicraft within contemporary art. Visually, both with her paintings and soft sculptures, McCarthy mixes pattern and color to transport the viewer back to deeply rooted memories of comfort and childhood. She utilizes both figurative and abstract styles to achieve this, often calling on a rather illustrative approach. Human comfort, nesting, and personal expression rely heavily on the use of fabric, design, and their intrinsic tactile qualities. With embroidery at the cornerstone of The Fantastic Nest, Kate McCarthy uses stitching as a narrative tool throughout her body of work. Chairs hint at rest, conversation, and repose. The pillowy, fantastical figures are a wonder begging to be squished, touched, and adored. The visceral reactions to her works are representational of all things that are fantastically human.

The Fantastic Nest, the artist says her works are “things of comfort dressed up,” and she uses a pattern to inspire nostalgia in her viewers. With childlike shapes and mysterious figures, there is something uncanny about her works. They are at once familiar and strange. They feel cozy, they appear wrapped up like a gift, and they are definitely hiding something. Also of note is the fact that, while these pieces appear to be made with traditional materials, McCarthy sometimes incorporates coffee and cigarette smoke into the work. We also appreciate her use of texture and color. Kate also creates adorable designs and patterns for tea towels and other objects. She said: “The thing I admire most at the moment, artistically speaking, is a balance between naivete and expression, and where the material is celebrated.” She is multifaceted artist and creator. With a keen sense of whimsy, and a dash of psychedelic surrealism, McCarthy’s creations are a unique breed of a familiar spirit.
Experience Kate McCarthy Art at Matthew Rachman Gallery. Kate McCarthy holds exhibitions at least every eighteen months. Her latest solo exhibitions include Big Little, Penny Contemporary, Hobart (2015), The Small Things, Penny Contemporary, Hobart
 (2014) and Chux Redux, CSart, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2010). The exhibition on view at Matthew Rachman Gallery in Chicago starts on June 2nd and closes on July 23rd, 2017. The gallery will host an opening reception on Friday, June 2nd from 6 pm to 9 pm, and the artist will be in attendance.

Carpazine Magazine

At the Matthew Rachman Gallery in Chicago the work of projective pop artist Kate McCarthy stands out. The Fantastic Nest exhibition running from June 2nd to July 23rd  will feature her highly collectible characters of vibrant cozy color. The Queenslander turned Tasmanian has brought her soft sculptures and paintings to several continents. The brave vision of childlike flexible shapes and imagery in her imagination are pulled together with near perfect technique and finishing.

Kate McCarthy comments, '...my work is things of comfort dressed up.'