'How Far Is The Horizon?' Are a series of details from photographic images looking through the Fresnel lenses of a lighthouse. The systems of lenses and light serve as maritime navigational and communication aids, marking dangerous coastlines. Providing short focal lengths they collect light that would otherwise escape to the sky or sea; concentrating it into a narrow horizontal pencil beam.
Standing where the lamp was situated Kathleen looks outwards through these engineered lenses through the details of light being reflected and refracted to offer a small glimpse of the world beyond that of the interior. Revisiting these images during lockdown whilst confined to her house Kathleen explores an abstract ethereal painterly quality to these structures offering open-ended possibilities.
Kathleen Herbert lives and works in Kent. She has received several major awards from the Arts Council England, and British Council. In 2005 Kathleen was nominated for the Becks Futures Award. Recently Kathleen's video and binaural sound piece was exhibited at The New York Public Library, as part of Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works.
Kathleen has completed several major commissions from the Southbank Centre, London, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Firstsite Gallery Colchester. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including: Danielle Arnaud, London (2020), Fotografskia, Stockholm, (2017), Art in Motion, Musseums Wiltshire, UK (2017) A Light Shines in the Darkness, Film and Video Umbrella Tour, UK (2014-2015); Stable, MOBIA Museum of Biblical Art, New York (2014); Force of Nature: Picturing Ruskin’s Landscape, Millennium Museum, Sheffield, (2013); Restless Times, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Norwich (2012); Firstsite, Colchester (2012); VOLTA NY, New York, (2010); Vita, Kuben, Umea, Sweden (2009); Hå gamle prestegard, Norway (2009); Sint Lukas Gallery, Brussels (2008); Auckland Triennial, Auckland (2004); Out of Site, Arnolfini, Bristol (2004), Time & Again, Crawford Gallery, Cork (2003); The Heimlich/Unheimlich, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne (2002); SCAPE, Art & Industry Bienniale, Christchurch (2002); The Silk Purse Procedure, Arnolfini & Spike Island, Bristol (2001).
Kathleen’s practice has also been featured in various publications most recently in Art Forum International, where Zack Hatfield reviewing, Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works, described Everything Is Fleeing To Its Presence, as mesmerising and majestic. Kathleen has also been featured in Wall Street International, Time Out, The Sunday Times Culture Magazine, Artist Newletter, Art Monthly, The Guardian Guide and recently ‘Installation as Encounter’: Ernesto Neto, Do Ho Suh and Kathleen Herbert Considered’, in Rina Arya (ed), ‘Contemplations of the Spiritual in Contemporary Art’.
