Exhibitions
Nocturne by Kate McDonnell
Installation exhibition by contemporary artist Kate McDonnell. Experience an immersive exploration of our relationship to sleep and insomnia.
This autumn, 44AD hosts Nocturne, an art installation exhibition by contemporary artist Kate McDonnell. Experience an immersive exploration of our relationship to sleep and insomnia which opens on 20 November 2024.
Nocturne explores the uncomfortable, liminal state between sleeping and waking. It’s a place of restlessness, irrational thoughts and whispered prayers, night after night – an incessant vigil for our anxieties. McDonnell embodies these uncomfortable feelings using bed linens and bedding, weaving disordered words into the installation. The bed – a place of rest – becomes tangled and fraught with intrusive thoughts.
Kate McDonnell says, “Insomnia can be such an overwhelming experience, and I hope to embody that, provoking feelings first and then thoughts”.
This year McDonnell was short-listed for the John Ruskin prize and awarded a Culture West Grant. In 2023, she presented her first major solo show at The Art House, Wakefield, following her installations at Chichester and Wells Cathedrals in 2022, and was also long-listed for the Aesthetica Art Prize. In 2021, she received the Gilbert Bayes Award, was named an ArtConnect Artist to Watch and was shortlisted for the New Emergence Art Prize. She graduated with a distinction from her MFA at Bath Spa University in 2018.
www.katemcdonnell.co.uk/nocturne
Nocturne explores the uncomfortable, liminal state between sleeping and waking. It’s a place of restlessness, irrational thoughts and whispered prayers, night after night – an incessant vigil for our anxieties. McDonnell embodies these uncomfortable feelings using bed linens and bedding, weaving disordered words into the installation. The bed – a place of rest – becomes tangled and fraught with intrusive thoughts.
Kate McDonnell says, “Insomnia can be such an overwhelming experience, and I hope to embody that, provoking feelings first and then thoughts”.
This year McDonnell was short-listed for the John Ruskin prize and awarded a Culture West Grant. In 2023, she presented her first major solo show at The Art House, Wakefield, following her installations at Chichester and Wells Cathedrals in 2022, and was also long-listed for the Aesthetica Art Prize. In 2021, she received the Gilbert Bayes Award, was named an ArtConnect Artist to Watch and was shortlisted for the New Emergence Art Prize. She graduated with a distinction from her MFA at Bath Spa University in 2018.
www.katemcdonnell.co.uk/nocturne
