Katrina Russell-Adams UNDERPIN
Virtual Exhibition

THE FOUNDRY GALLERY
39 Old Church St, Chelsea, London SW3 5BS

Katrina Russell-Adams is a South London based self-taught artist known for her vividly abstract two and three-dimensional artworks which feature geometrical shapes and a refined colour palette. Her work explores the relationships between shapes, composition and their graphical language - taking the form of murals, printmaking, assemblage, sculpture, site-specific installation and public and private commissions. She suffered a traumatic brain injury from a bicycle accident in June 2020 which has left her with cognitive impairment and fatigue. Not wanting to postpone her first solo show, Katrina has had to considerably transform the way in which she works embracing a slower pace and becoming more studio based. 

Inspired by a playful sculptural summer break with a trip to St Ives, Cornwall and the Hepworth Museum Wakefield Katrina has become more interested in form and abstraction in relation to human body: how we perceive and engage with sculptural installations. The shapes that Katrina uses in her work for UNDERPIN are all derived from an architectural drawing template that hangs on her studio wall. She became interested in these shapes templates after working on relief mural for BAT Studios, an architecture and model making studio in East London, during her practice she has broken down and utilised this architectural vocabulary creating her own striking visual language. These shapes depict the language of architecture and geometry, a continual dialogue between organic and formal shapes where she has played with scale, colour, and composition. Katrina starts all her projects two dimensionally; playing in the studio with screen printing which she sees as a three-dimensional thought process. As she builds up her prints the initial shapes are overlaid and the translucency of each layer creates more shapes, while negative spaces between them give way to new and interesting forms. 

Over the last 18 months, Katrina has become interested in making her prints come to life as forms of play sculpture. Inspired by play architecture such as Jeppe Hein’s Modified Social Benches on London South Bank in 2016, where his interactive works playfully remind viewers of their vital part of activating art’s potential, and the 2015 RIBA exhibition “The Brutalist Playground” which explored the abstract concrete playgrounds that were designed as part of post-war housing estates. 

Her 2019 project for ITV Creates allowed her the opportunity to push her creative boundaries and play with these ideas. She began with a series of screen prints and then went on to transform these into a three-dimensional interactive, kinetic installation composed of free standing and suspended polystyrene forms and structures in her signature colour palette which was constructed site-specifically for the film studio.

UNDERPIN is an interplay of two and three-dimensional shapes, print and relief works are juxtaposed with drawings and a kinetic site-specific sculpture. Together with the artist, The Foundry Gallery chose to curate a show which reflects not only Katrina’s journey from her initial idea to its fruition but also the journey of continuous rehabilitation, she has used this as an opportunity to develop a new body of work away from the comfort zone of her commercial practice and to take on the ideas found in the Brutalist playgrounds of post war housing estates and what she has learnt from ITV Creates. The artworks “appear to be uncomplicated, formally simple affairs possibly nodding to 1970s conceptual art and minimalism, but something happens as they are approached: they react to human presence.

About the Artist
Katrina Russell-Adams lives and works in South-east London. Katrina is a self-taught artist and came to a career in the visual arts 4 years ago following a course in printmaking. Her work explores the relationships between shapes, composition and their graphical language, taking the form of public and private commissions including murals, printmaking, assemblage, sculpture and site-specific installation. Katrina enjoys working on her own and in collaboration with other artists, designers and architects. She is passionate about community initiatives and public accessibility to the arts. Her work continues to evolve, informed by the history, architecture, colour and culture of her surroundings and those she works in.

Find out more: thefoundrygallery.org
Follow on Instagram: @the_foundrygallery
From 8th March 2021 to 24th April 2021

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