Kate Whyles is a professional curator, an overseer of the art within a space , who began her journey as an artist in Nottingham studying for her A levels. Moving on to Nottingham College, she studied for an Art Foundation in 1997, going on to study Fine Art at Trent University. When she finished her studies at Trent, she got into the Royal Academy London specialising in sculpture working with resin.
Looking for places to put on an exhibition and volunteering at Art Space whilst building up a portfolio of experiences, she worked with Marc Quinn looking after his collection of work. This was a great responsibility, working on his first major exhibition titled ‘Out of Time’. This involved keeping the work at a precise temperature in order to preserve the piece, as it is as he used real blood within this sculptures.
Within six months of working with Marc Quinn and seeking more experience, she then went onto work with Gilbert and George who live their lives as an art performance sensation. She worked on the work Light Boxes and Words and Picture exhibition and was mentored by Tracey Emin .
She was working in London at the time of the ground breaking exhibition titled ‘Sensation’ put together by art curator Charles Saatchi which featured artists such as Tracey Emin and Damion Hurst .
There was 100 pieces of art by 40 different artists at The Royal Academy in London between the times September & December 1997 . This was the British movement and had people really questioning .This was something different from traditional audience playing on people thoughts and views of the world etc . It was such a huge moment nobody knew how ground breaking it would be with British art and music at the time culturally.
Some of the artwork was more like theatre provoking so many emotions and putting all these artists the map
In 2000 she returned to Nottingham taking on the old exhibition space and working with other artists. She moved into live art and shock performance art, putting together immersive experiences and collaborating with other artists.
Self 1991 Marc Quinn
Being a curator preserving this art work for Marc was an extremely important role. When looking at the work it is ordinary functional blood taken in to art creating extraordinary sculptures . This pushes the boundaries and the possibilities of using something outside of the traditional sculpture material . This is something I do myself take materials such as flowers and placing them into plaster.
