Trans West : Collaboration with Joan Healy

Documentation of work performed in collaboration with Joan Healy at the Molesworth Gallery, Dublin. Also preformed at Live Stock
in Market Studios, Dublin July 2010, and perhaps further mash-ups to come....



In a further interrogation of the nature of objectivity, Trans West is a collaboration with artist Joan Healy in which the body of the performance artist(s) is interrogated as artwork.

This collision of the two practices pushes and pulls understandings of what constitutes the artwork in performance. As two independently acting bodies intersect, authorship and art object are entangled in the intersubjective exchange. Processes of objectification are opened out as the body presses against the material object, and the material presses against the body. Indeed the very distinction between what and who, material and body, author and artwork are distended and collapsed in a fluid process of exchange and transfusion

Surface Attention. Space, Bratislava 13:07:10

Raw footage of a live performance of Surface Attention at Space Gallery in Bratislava.


This industrial building, formerly used for coal storage, has been whitewashed into the ostensibly neutral space that characterizes the contemporary art gallery. The performance focuses on the idiosyncrasies of the architecture, namely the large black ramp that marks the buildings history. The female performer - also marked as erotic body by her black lingerie - spreads her body across the surfaces and structure of the iron framework. Investing her desires in the cold and inanimate, she raises questions in relation to her own vulnerability as object through the absurdly perverse and erotically ridiculous.

Surface Attention: The Box III, Berlin 28:07:10

New Photographic works. Performance in Stattbad, Berlin.

Surface Attention: The Box II, Berlin 28:07:10

Livestock, Dublin: New Performance

I will be developing a new performance as part of Livestock, in
Market Studios, Dublin. Livestock events foster an experimental space in which artist's are encouraged to develop work in a live but supportive creative environment. This mobilizes the potential fluidity of performance, pulling and stretching artistic practice across and through disciplines, and fostering a crucial space for dialogue and exchange.


As a performance artist this presents a fantastic opportunity for work to be energized by the public moment and yet unconstrained by expectation. Emphasis on experimentation and creative exchange fosters a productive instability, which opens out performance practice and its critical contribution to contemporary culture and discourse.

The line up includes:
Katherine Nolan
Sinead McCann
Dominic Thorpe
Jess Kelly
Katherine Barragry
Valerie Joyce
The Troupe
Colm Clarke
Toymonger
Jennie Guy
Andy Behan
StephenDoyle
Kit McDermot

Sat 31st July, from 6.30 + rooftop party after!
This event is free, all welcome, BYOB.
The Market Studios,Corner of Mary’s Lane and Halston Street, Dublin 1. Map

Surface Attention The Pool: Berlin 21:07:10

Surface Attention The Box: Berlin 21:07:10

The tour continues...

Documentation of the evolving Surface Attention series as performed in Stattbad Berlin.

SPACE Bratislava: Surface Attention

I will be performing a new piece Surface Attention in SPACE this Tues 13th 17th July as part of MART's An Instructional.

Surface Attention is a series of bodily interventions in gallery spaces across Europe, taking place in SHUNT London, Stattbad Berlin, Space Bratislava and Molesworth Gallery Dublin.



Continuing an exploration of the self as erotic body, this work implicates the frame of gallery space in a perverse female desire. Through the intimate physical contact of the skin with the architecture of the space the work opens out a narcissistic impulse in performance, literally and symbolically pushing it to the surface. The body pressed across surfaces of crumbling brick, cold concrete, bright blue tiles, or ostensibly neutral white walls become invested objects as the body moves between erotic, absurd and vulnerable.






MART , Visual Art Group provide a platform for new media, performance and installation artists. An Instructional: A Touring Exhibition comprises work collated under the principles of 'readymade' practices.

Surface Attention: Performance at SHUNT

Surface Attention at SHUNT Thurs 25th - Sat 27th June 2010

I will be performing a new piece Surface Attention in SHUNT this Thurs 25th- Sat 27th of June as part of MART's An Instructional.

Surface Attention is a series of bodily interventions in gallery spaces across Europe, taking place in SHUNT London, Stattbad Berlin, Space Bratislava and Molesworth Gallery Dublin.


Continuing an exploration of the self as erotic body, this work implicates the frame of gallery space in a perverse female desire. Through the intimate physical contact of the skin with the architecture of the space the work opens out a narcissistic impulse in performance, literally and symbolically pushing it to the surface. The body pressed across surfaces of crumbling brick, cold concrete, bright blue tiles, or ostensibly neutral white walls become invested objects as the body moves between erotic, absurd and vulnerable.

MART , Visual Art Group provide a platform for new media, performance and installation artists. An Instructional: A Touring Exhibition comprises work collated under the principles of 'readymade' practices.

The SHUNT lounge is a members' bar deep in the tunnels under London Bridge Station, hosting performance, music, film, installation and a bar that is open late. Many of these events will be in the early stages of development and presented for the first time.

SHUNT
20 Stainer St
(entrance under London Bridge station)
SE1 9LR
Entry: £5 Weds & Thurs/£10 Fri & Sat
come early to avoid queues

Map

Surface Attention: new performance work

Surface Attention is a series of bodily interventions in the social and public space of the gallery/theatre. New work which will be performed in re-used spaces across Europe this summer.


Whether centre stage or roaming through the space, the female performer costumed and primed for erotic display in black lingerie, absurdly directs her performance to walls and corners. Finding gaps, nooks and protrusions in the architecture, she presses and squeezes herself across surfaces and into crevices, feeling and exploring the architecture with her skin.

This new work opens out the narcissistic impulse in performance, literally and symbolically pushing it to the surface. The performance space as frame - whether purpose built gallery, theatre, re-used industrial or leisure space -becomes implicated in the female performer's perverse desires. The work seeks to twist the voyeuristic gaze by presenting a spectacle that shifts between erotic, absurd and abject.

An Instructional: A European Tour

I will be performing more disturbing kinks as part of
MART's European Tour which has kicked off in Bergen, Norway. The effervescent Ciara Scanlan and Mathew Nevin curate a dazzling line-up of video, installation and performance art across Europe including UK, Norway, Slovak Republic and Ireland. Hop on board the tour bus!

Seducing the Machine

The Link Gallery, Epsom
Private View 19th March, 5.30
Exhibition runs from 20th March to 2nd April


Seducing the Machine is an exhibition of digital video and photographic work and marks the culmination of Nolan's doctoral research into narcissism, performance and contemporary feminist practice.



Nolan’s work is radical. She uses Narcissism as a critical tool, a way of fighting back. This may seem incongruous with much contemporary art but self love is fundamental to many an artist in their work. Of course, this is doubly the case for the female practitioner as Narcissism is commonly associated with women. Nolan employs this common conception and ‘flips’ it in her work, creating an exciting push and pull, between being in control and yet perhaps being vulnerable too. The artist turns a ‘trivial’ and ‘frivolous’ fixation with her own image into a critical weapon.

Over the course of the exhibition, Nolan addresses different modalities of feminine narcissism, playing with the autoerotic, self-reflexivity, vanity, masquerade, attention seeking hysteria and exhibitionism. A complex set of exchanges between the camera/viewer/self is also explored. Nolan’s original work unravels narcissism and twists its clichéd terms.



The Link Gallery, Epsom.
University for the Creative Arts
Ashley Road
Epsom
Surrey KT18 5BE
Mon-Thurs 9am - 8pm. Fri 9am - 5.30pm. Sat 10am -5 pm
Trains from Victoria and Waterloo to Epsom, take 35 mins.
UCA is 5 min walk from Epsom station

Enquiries to nolan.katherine@yahoo.ie.

Silver Screen Shimmy (2009)

Silver Screen Shimmy, a two channel video piece, is a recording of live performance at the Galway Arts Festival as as part of MART's Open Door Policy

This saucy cabaret chick shows off her goods in Silkes shop window. Seduced by the lure of her black frills smalls and her red hot lips the viewer gets more than they bargained for.

Silver Screen Shimmy explores the screen as mirror and a slippery, elusive and distorting surface. This seeks to question modern forms of narcissistic display whilst still indulging the female subject's desire to razzle dazzle 'em.

The slippery surface of the screen starts to scupper her erotic performance, as if to communicates the danger of investment its shinny surface.As she slips down the screen she moves between erotic and wretched as she struggles to maintain what is left of the erotic pose. The female transcends from the classic narcissistic object to abject body, her desire to be looked at distorting her body through the contact with the screen.

The use of the dual screen contrasts the external spectacle with a more internal experience of the female performer. The two screens have a mirroring relationship to each other, their synchronicity materializing through the females movements. Yet an asymmetry between the two shots distances them, suggesting a mirror of misrecognition as well as narcissistic identification.

Silver Screen Shimmy at Visual Deflections

Images of Silver Screen Shimmy in installation and projection as premiered in Visual Deflections . This two screen video piece is a recording of live performance at the Galway Arts Festival as as part of MART's Open Door Policy



Silver Screen Shimmy explores the screen as mirror and a slippery, elusive and distorting surface. This seeks to question modern forms of narcissistic display whilst still indulging the female subject's desire to razzle dazzle 'em.

Visual Deflections Featuring Piplotti Rist

Press release for Visual Deflections a project that I have co-curated and featuring the premiere of my video Silver Screen Shimmy

Visual Deflections featuring Piplotti Rist

Curated by Eleanor Lawler and Katherine Nolan
Corbet Place: Sat 29th August 2009, 6.30pm till late

(Entlastungen) Pipilottis Fehler <(Absolutions) Pipilotti’s Mistakes>, 1988, video by Pipilotti Rist (video still). Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Piplotti Rist’s pioneering video work has been aspirational for a generation of emerging artists. This event will screen a selection of these artists alongside Rist’s (Absolutions) Pipilotti’s Mistakes. Her influence is reflected in the concept of Visual Deflections, a homage to her use of disjuncture and distortion

The idea of Visual Deflections infers the interruption of the image through distortions of time, movement, light and space. It may also suggest a manipulation of assumptions and identifications that reverberate between the spectator and screen

The works will be shown as a screening from 6.30 Sat, and video installation will continue until Sun 11pm. The venue, Corbet Place , is part of the The Old Truman Brewery at the heart of Shoreditch’s vibrant creative scene. The brickwork of the club provides a stripped back aesthetic for the screening, which will be followed by music curated by Back to the Wood

Artists: Piplotti Rist, Clint Enns, Ted Sonnenschein, Tessa Garland, Katherine Nolan , Eleanor Lawler, Jonathan Gilhooly, Jan Hakon Erichsen, Ciara Scanlan, Victoria Melody, Anders Weberg, Theo Tagholm,Lisa Flynn, Hillary Williams, Mathew Guillford , Alan Magee, Jeremy Newman, Saskia Vermeulen, Angelo Picozzi , Liam Herne, Sarah Breen Lovett, Ella Bertilsson , Lia Chavez, Vanessa Daws.

Corbet Place
The Old Truman Brewery
15 Hanbury St
E1 6QR
Tube: Liverpool St
MAP
6.30 pm till late
Free Entry