Katrina Chaytor: ‘A Decorated Practice’The North-West Ceramics Foundation is pleased to announce that Katrina Chaytor will be their featured speaker at a free public lecture.
November 12, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Room 245 North Building of Emily Carr University of Art + Design
(1399 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver).
Chaytor is a nationally and internationally known ceramic artist and educator based in Calgary, Alberta, where she has been a permanent member of the ceramics faculty at the Alberta College of Art + Design since 2001. Born and raised on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, she received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax and her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, New York. She has exhibited in numerous national and international group, two-person and solo exhibitions.
Katrina Chaytor is best known for her hand-built functional ware including elaborate sets of stacking condiment pots and flower holders. These are constructed with the precision of an architect and decorated with the eye of a painter. Much of her studio research has focused on the role of ornament as a “mediator between art and life” in contemporary culture. She builds complex ornament through repeating patterns based on motifs inherent in our technological environment including computer keyboard icons, circuitry references and desktop symbols. Her work encourages viewers to notice the beauty and graphic interest inherent in the industrial world and to recognize how such ornament functions in the design of our everyday environment. Chaytor’s intriguing and sensuous work makes important and relevant contributions to ceramics and to contemporary craft and art discourse.