Teaming up with Katie Eraser for our new scarf collection has been one of the highlights of our year at One of Twelve. We caught up with Katie to talk about our upcoming collection and to get an insight into her practice.
I’m always interested to know why people become artists. What led you down this path?
I’m not even entirely convinced it is a choice if I’m honest, because I’m not sure you would choose this haha! Being an artist, putting your work out into the universe, and inevitably your heart and soul with it, is a very treacherous road to tread. But I keep coming back to it, and never stray very far because it lives inside me, and I’m not aware of any other pursuit that gives me so much contentment and feeling of intense freedom in the moment.
How did your upbringing and background influence you as an artist?
My background and side hustle is graphic design. I’ve never trained professionally in art, I went straight into a graphic design degree out of high school and stayed with it. I’ve always drawn inspiration from many fields within the creative arts umbrella; interiors, furniture, sculpture, textiles and so on. Overlapping these two avenues, art and design, happens often, and it’s always felt natural to bring elements of one into another. Being exposed to colour, shape and form every day in some way has influenced me greatly, I never stop feeding off new inspiration, and hoard thousands of images in a library on my hard drive.
Colour and shape are strong elements in your work. Which do you think of first when planning a work?
I love setting the intention of colour as my first step, I mix my own colours and so start each piece staring at the ever increasing number of old chilli and sauce jars masquerading as professional paint pots. As soon as I decide on what tones the work will operate inside I then choose complementary and also contrasting colours. The colour palette can run from 5 colours to 15, it just depends on my mood and how the different colours are dancing on the day.
We are so excited to be able to collaborate with you on this project. As you know, we are interested in making art wearable. How do you feel about a venturing outside of the traditional constraints of a gallery setting and into apparel?
As I am equally pumped about collaborating with you! I am honoured to be apart of what you’ve created. I love the idea of my pieces leaving the gallery confines and venturing out into the world draped around people, living new lives. I think they will take on an entirely different energy outside, and I am eagerly awaiting the moment I catch a glimpse of one out in the wild. The other artists in the One of Twelve stable are some that I am hugely inspired by, I now own Nyanu Watson’s Tjulpu Scarf, which hangs on my bedroom wall, I will definitely be adding more to my collection.
These works were from a recent exhibition at Boom Gallery “If We Could Talk”. Can you tell us about the show?
If We Could Talk was a show of paintings and sculpture, the painted works represented the open inner dialogue of my embodied experience in time and space and emotion. Each piece was built around the words of a friend, and how those words wandered over and interacted with familiar landscapes. The forms spoke to how the internal dialogue interacts with that which is contributed by the influential people orbiting my landscape. Their voices, combined with mine, represented an undulating harmony of projected feelings, intended offerings and abstract propositions.
Whats the cards for next year?
I’ve had a huge 2018, just on the precipice of over-extension really haha, so I am looking at a holiday break in Bali to soak in some new smells and sounds and surely be inspired a fresh, then I’ll think about tackling 2019. My intention this year has been trying my damnedest to stay in the moment, so trying not to get too caught up in what’s happening the future… stay tuned.
