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This video presents an in-depth look at iconic artist Katie Ohe’s 60 years of sculptural practice and her unparalleled approach to material, form, space, and movement.
The exhibition at Esker Foundation, on view until 3 May, brings together sculptural work spanning six decades of Ohe’s remarkable career, marking the largest and most comprehensive solo exhibition of her work to date. The exhibition also draws from Ohe’s considerable material archive, revealing a glimpse of a process devoted to research, inquiry, and visual or formal problem solving.
Ohe is best known for her abstract steel sculptures; organic forms that evoke the undulatory surface of a pool of water, the crest of a rolling hill or cumulonimbus cloud, or the cadence of a walking figure. The surfaces of many of these sculptures are subsequently chromed or polished, creating a flawlessly smooth exterior that conjures an illusion of weightlessness and is also irresistible to touch. Indeed, many of Ohe’s works are fully activated only by the push of a human hand. She remarks, “I want my sculptures to induce or invoke touch before you think that you really shouldn’t.”
The exhibition, Katie Ohe is on view at Esker Foundation, Calgary until 3 May, 2020.
