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Katie Paterson

Born 1981 in Glasgow

Paterson studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 2000-2004 (BA) and the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 2004-2007 (MFA).

Paterson is a conceptual artist, currently living in Berlin, whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses wide-ranging themes relating to the natural world, cosmology, geology and time. She does not produce art objects, as traditionally understood, her creations take the form of artefacts and installations which link participants to phenomena and events not only on earth but in far-flung parts of the universe and not only in the present but in the distant past. The media used are diverse, including photography, sound, diagrams, texts and various technologies.

Her 2007 work Vatnajökull (‘The sound of’) consisted of a neon sign showing a telephone number which, when dialled on an adjacent phone, connected the caller via a live link to a microphone submerged in a glacier in Iceland. The sounds of trickling water and creaking ice dramatically convey the gradual melting and movement of the glacier. For All the Dead Stars (2009), Paterson created a large map, laser-etched on metal, documenting the locations of 27,000 dead stars in the universe. This, like many of her projects involved extensive research and consultations with scientific experts, including in this case NASA. History of Darkness (2010) consisted of a library of 2200 photographic slides, recording the darkest areas in the distant reaches of the universe and spanning billions of years.

Since 2007 Paterson has exhibited extensively throughout the UK as well as in the USA, Sweden, Germany, Australia, Portugal, and China. Her solo shows include those at the Matthew Bown Gallery, London (2007), Modern Art, Oxford (2008), James Cohan Gallery, New York (2011), PKM Seoul, South Korea (2011), BAWAG Contemporary, Vienna, Austria (2012), Haunch of Venison, London (2012), Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, USA (2012), Mead Gallery, University of Warwick (2013), Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge University (2013), Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (2014) and FRAC Frache Comté, Besançon, France (2015).

Dying Star Doorbell
Future Library
Second Moon