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Member Profile
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2021
[L-R]: Ellen Duffy and Kate Murphy, BKB Studios, December 2020; photograph by Lucy Tevlin, courtesy the artists.
‘PARALLEL [IN]BETWEEN’ is an ongoing project of exchange and col-
Parallel [in]Between ELLEN DUFFY AND KATE MURPHY DISCUSS THEIR ONGOING COLLABORATION.
laboration between visual artists Ellen Duffy and Kate Murphy. We were commissioned by The Dock as part of the Dock Summer Commissions 2020, which began at the outset of the pandemic as a way of supporting the artists who were scheduled to exhibit as part of the gallery’s 2020 programme. This facilitated a series of works, which took place over the course of a year. We used this collaboration as a way to keep lines of communication open throughout the pandemic, as well as having a shared focus and accountability to continue working through uncertain times. It enables us to engage haptically with work other than our own, and to build upon the frameworks set by our own practice, allowing space for new ways of thinking about collaborative art making. We both share core values that impact how we make work, including the importance of materiality, site-responsiveness, and process-led practice. These key factors manifest in sculptural installations for both of us. However, it is at that point we start to diverge. Ellen’s assembling process involves free-form decision-making that utilises found/discarded and industrial materials, incorporating them into fabricated structures that create interdependent assemblages. Kate implements a more rigorous set of rules, taken from industrial processes – such as cast making, woodwork and welding – to exercise the points between object and space. Kate considers looking, reflecting and spending time within the boundaries of a site an important aspect of how she fabricates her sculptural interventions in space. The original intention for our project, ‘Parallel [in]Between’, began as a collaborative exhibition. However, restrictions as a result of the pandemic forced us to reconfigure these plans. We had to develop a project that allowed us to continue to work within guidelines set by the government. This restructuring transformed the potential of this project. There was more to tease out, more mistakes to be made and more chance for
