Dwell catalogue essay by Gina Irish

Cartography extends beyond physical descriptions of the natural world to reveal the evolution of society and culture. While maps are universal tools, recognised and understood worldwide, they are riddled with history and narrative, etched with topographical lines, nautical miles and ancient landforms grounded in oceans of blue. Katie Thomas is no stranger to this concept: in recent years, form, pattern and design have moved steadily toward the artist's current study of cartography, to reveal a vista of sanctuary and belonging.
Dwell is an embodiment of place, our varied and complex connections with the land, the presence of past inhabitants, and the private, internal worlds where secrets and memories are stored. Maps detailing the Hope Valley or a suburban Christchurch neighbourhood are among many sites selected for reproduction, some signposting the artist's past and present dwellings, others taken from New Zealand's expansive countryside. Each work maps the geographic and spiritual locations Thomas and others have come to regard as their own.
The golden hues of the earlier Walk the Day series are now replaced with dark, earthy tones. Thomas has pioneered her style, slowly removing paint to experiment with resin and mixed media. A dense layer of resin is poured into a mould, materials are placed, and finally another layer of resin stained with glistening pigments is added. The artist's process is time consuming as pigments are left to develop in a pool of resin where they sink, bleed and form patches of fleeting colour; a chemical reaction orchestrated by the artist, and occasionally directed by fate.
Thomas' works move beyond the conventional frame to present new configurations. Not without Scars, a large piece cut to the shape of a knot is an entry point, a pattern borrowed from Celtic history and the artist's ancestry to support Thomas' exploratory aims. The twisting, meandering knot with no clear beginning or end interconnects and overlaps to create pathways leading the eye across the surface of the work, each junction prompting reflection or perseverance. The continuous, hypnotic loops unveil exquisite detail and organic colour buried beneath a glossy surface.
Thomas cuts through the polished layer to create contour lines and shallow grooves. Once cut, Thomas smooths the roaming trails, linking lines to create a rhythm of words; 'Nomans Land', 'Winding Creek' and 'Hope Kiwi'. These place names resonate, embroiled in Thomas' knot. These are metaphors for the scars we leave on the earth, traces of being and our desire to stake a claim. Cartographic symbols are mixed with sculptural channels, abstract designs, and a unique visual code.
These glistening resin coatings allure and intrigue. Materials trapped beneath the glassy surface are equally mesmerising, revealing a kaleidoscope of colour and the internal structures Thomas brings to view. Thomas explores what lies beyond the surface of the earth, to reveal an underground world. The translucent resin adds depth to these paintings, to uncover a site where shiny jewels, spectacular tones, and archaeological treasures are fossilised within a polished casing.
Braid and Many Voices are two rectangular works, each composed of four small square panels, which combine to form aerial views of the Waimakariri River. A mass of coloured resin crosses are pieced together to mark a landmass, the different shades of red, green and brown evocative of the graded Canterbury Plains or a crawling, urban landscape. A background of pages, taken from old books which are then glued together and sawed into strips, are set in resin, their muddled and incomplete sentences cutting the bank of the 'crossed' landscape.
Through this wordscape, a 'river' is cut. Resin tinted with sapphire green pigment flows through 'riverbeds' carved by the artist, drowning the mass of words, breaking through the glued pages in an arterial fashion. These are the writings of history, the memoirs of the people who have lived on the land and the stories attributed to place.
Three dark green discs revisit fragments of the landscape that appear in Not without Scars. Here, the channels are filled not with pigment, but with text. An endless stream of words is pumped through a pipeline, likened to telecommunication cables buried deep underground, carrying the dialogue of thousands, intersecting and colliding. Alternatively, these cables may carry genealogy, oral history, myths or legends. Thomas is fascinated with words and through her rich visual language seeks to 'evoke images, histories and memories'. 1 Occasionally, words leap fourth from the depths of resin, seemingly meaningless in their deconstructed state, teasing the viewer to join in a game of word association.
From the dark and sometimes dejected landscapes, Thomas retreats to private worlds where the heart beats and the mind wanders. Thomas' pink work Unbound maps internal structures, penetrating the flesh in search of ephemeral landmarks. The three large flesh coloured discs seemingly roll and unravel across the gallery wall, leaving a trail of pink - a provocative, yet subtle representation of the body.
Wooden rods, coated in light pink resin, are locked together, appearing woven, and cross hatched to mimic the appearance of skin. The fibres of individual rods alter the pinkness to create varied flesh coloured tones. At times, these bodily representations border on the grotesque and the sublime, sharing the characteristics of a specimen enlarged under a microscope, their circular form reminiscent of a Petri dish. Is this a diseased body or a healthy group of cells, flesh or muscle? Are there scars or birthmarks? Clippings of Thomas' blonde hair are trapped beneath the resin surface, a process which draws comparisons with Victorian jewellery woven from the hair of loved ones, an effort to keep memory alive and the fragments of the past we carry close to the skin.
Black lines in-filled with the graded detail of an urban map - one detailing the artist's street (Here Am I) - masquerade as fingerprints, or a tattoo drawn against a fleshy, raw ground. The gauges that trail through Not without Scars are not unlike the heavy black lines that rest on this delicate pink frame. Tattoo and adornment are the codes of body cartography.
Thomas presents the physical and metaphysical worlds she inhabits. The markings on the body, and those of the land, function as symbols of where we stand, who we are and how we came to be. These are the places where we dwell.
Gina Irish
1 Katie Thomas in conversation with author 13 October 2004