Slipping between the notions of art and design, Kate Langrish-Smith’s practice transcends disciplines, drawing upon contemporary fashion, ceramics and sculpture. Kate has adopted traditional craft techniques, and expanded upon them by incorporating synthetic compounds, assemblage, balance and performance to create a new lexicon with her work. This has engendered a unique semiotics of object; allowing a reappraisal of the body in the context of familiar, ubiquitous and overlooked commodities.

Her practice seeks a rapprochement between our dislocation from the makers, materials and provenance of objects that were shaped for a relationship with the human form. Kate draws inspiration from the history of health, beauty, and art from which surprising and compelling ‘stuff’, ‘things’ and traditions are illustrated. These forms – vessels, tools and artefacts – are the starting point for collections and clusters of objects which reconnect and elevate disparate places in time through a common language of ritual, desire and fascination.