In her multidisciplinary, text-based practice, Katrina Palmer (b.1967) grapples with evocative subjects. Absences, openings and the body, for instance, surface in End Matter (2015), a project comprising an installation, audio tour, radio broadcast and book. Commissioned by Artangel and BBC Radio 4, the project centres on the Isle of Portland in Dorset and explores sculptural material in relation to language, philosophy and sociopolitical geographies through a close examination of the materiality of the limestone that the location is famed for, alongside contexts of the stone’s formation, extraction and subsequent use. The book End Matter is a (largely) fictional work and although its subject-matter is rich, it is primarily notable for its formal qualities. It is composed solely of end matter – ‘Addendum’, ‘Epilogue’, ‘Colophon’ and ‘Acknowledgements’ – thereby foregrounding aspects that are typically peripheral. The book is described as being ‘presented – like the stone itself – as absences from the narrative; end matter, whose body is missing’.
Read the review in full online via Burlington Contemporary.
Published 22 February 2023.
Katrina Palmer: What’s Already Going On
Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre
12 January – 12 March 2023
Katrina Palmer: What’s Already Going On
Anneka French 