Second Nature is a solo exhibition of paintings at 99 Loop Gallery Cape Town, 6-27 March 2021.
In a series of paintings Katherine Bull continues her exploration of online image archives as a kind of prosthetic consciousness. Taking her starting point in random scrolling through Instagram posts, the selected and layered images shift as they are translated into watery ink washes on cotton. In the process the images of human-animals dissolve and transform as they spread into stains that are fixed, yet slippery to recognize in their fluidity. Like chasing ghosts of meaning, Bull reflects on how endless digital searching has become second nature, while her process of translating it into ink marks enters the in-between realm of moistmedia . This meditative process of painting in the peripheral zone between figurative and abstraction is for the artist a space of externalising an inner search for the nature of self in the face of personal loss and grief.
