Our last edition of The Kick-About immersed us in the shimmering world of iridescence—a celebration of light in perpetual transformation. This week, we turn our attention to the evocative art of Kiki Smith, whose work probes themes of mortality, the human body and the interplay of myth and nature. For all previous editions of The Kick-About, please click here.
Vanessa Clegg
“I’m a great fan of this artist…the way she melds the darker side of fairy stories with the interaction between human and animal. Marina Warner / Paula Rego / and Angela Carter stand in the wings. This series of linocuts are work in progress (at least the last one is) covering Flood and Fire—both topical.”
vanessaclegg.co.uk / vanillaclegg
Lewis Punton
“Kiki Smith struck a chord with me pretty immediately, more specifically her commitment to exploring the themes of life, regeneration, and reincarnation; as well as their places within the natural world and our interactions with said world. With those themes, and Phil’s Geodes still bubbling away as a second source of inspiration, I took charcoal and graphite sticks to paper and started making marks; working from video footage of various insects emerging from their chrysalises in hopes of capturing a selection of the transformations found in moments of rebirth…”
“I found a rhythm and felt the urge to continue building on this small body of work, all inspired by the life affirming themes found in Kiki Smith’s varied pieces. Again using charcoal and a graphite stick, I took to working instinctively from footage of various birds hatching from their eggs to capture those first gestures and forms in sweeping marks.”
Charly Skilling
“I started playing around with some simple sketches of female forms as a basis for a painting. along the lines of ‘Woman exercising—with cat.’ But the further I went with the work, the more static and rigid it became. So I went back to the sketches and here are a few of them.”
Kerfe Roig
“Three subjects stood out for me in Kiki Smith’s work: the cosmos, birds, and human interactions with them.”
penumbra
I have become a shadowed threshold–
I do not know if either side belongs to me
or if I must remain an idea,
a thread woven into the fragile between
I don’t know if any side belongs to me–
everything comes and goes, transparent
winglight passing through me like a river
If I must remain an merely an idea,
I would like to sail it in stillness,
riding the mottled currents imprinted on air
A thread woven into the fragile between,
I am outside myself, beside myself–
unboundaried, theoretical, undone
trimeric
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
Ashley
“To be honest, I knew very little about Kiki Smith but in the process of reading about her work, just a few words gave me a direction for this Kick-About. She is fascinated by the human form and some of her sculptures feature body parts. That was the trigger for me as I have continued to look into aspects of Chinese medicine where the natural elements of metal, water, wood, fire and earth are linked to human internal organs. In this work, I have set the 5 human organs into a primordial scene. There is surely more to explore in this subject, but that will be for another day.“
James Randall
“Kiki’s work struck me as powerful in a vulnerable way. This image began with shapes relating to the natural world and life in general. its another one about the moon really.”
Phil Gomm
“I liked the strong narrative element, and the scratchy, witchy vibes of Smith’s figures; that sense too of the promise of magic, and the environs of the woods. I don’t draw really, but I decided I’d just begin something by using charcoal on tracing paper to conjure up some expressive faces – three witches as it turns out! The idea to make a film followed soon after, which saw me mucking about with crushed charcoal and some stop-frame animation. I got this idea to evoke a witches’ sabbat, so imagined their faces moving in and out of the firelight as they danced about it—and even a sense perhaps of transfigurations taking place under the moon and stars…”
philgomm.com / behance.net/Phil_Gomm
From the works of Kiki Smith to the satirical cartoons and caricatures of James Gillray…
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