Maud Cotter

About Maud Cotter

Artist's Statement

I see my work as an exploration of human presence and its indivisible relationship with the material world. To unlock the possibilities within this fundamental relationship is part of the challenge of the work. Within this, understanding physicality and the nature of energy is a central concern.

Materiality, however, is not important for its own sake. I think of material as generic matter capable of many disguises, each of which can communicate the nature of existence.

The work frequently incorporates found objects. These are chosen for their emotional and visual content; the historical context of their making is not always relevant. The eclectic mix of ingredients in individual pieces acts, for me, as a generator of a field of energy, housed in the skeletal remains of other things. I form pieces in this mix, within which all is possible.

‘Not the full story’ is a shelved collection of wares, behaviourly irreverent, playing host to a perspex structure with the propagational drive of a spider plant. It is intent on reminding us that all is not what it seems, even in the simplest of things.

A repeated characteristic of the work is that it formally clusters or takes on the collective intelligence of a swarm through its many parts. Works, such as ‘More than anything’, and ‘I don’t know about that’ become collective forces, mechanisms that coalesce to form a way of invesigating the nature of matter, its use and abuse through overproduction.

That the presence achieved within the work hovers outside the constituent parts of the assembled piece is important… for me this is the transcendant moment, the stretch which broadens the teritory of our perception, and our understanding of ourselves. ‘Objects in an act of survival’ are not just surviving, they are expressing a wish to extend beyond themselves into a more transcendent existence.

Leaden Implant [1990/91]
Inked handmade paper worked with chalk primer and conte, 113 x 78 cms
Donated by the Connectus Komonia Trust 1995.

My Young Volcano [1990/91]
Inked handmade paper worked with chalk primer and conte, each 113 x 78 cms
Donated by the Connectus Komonia Trust 1995

Consuming Pool [1990/91]
Inked handmade paper worked with chalk primer and conte, 113 x 78 cms
Donated by the Connectus Komonia Trust 1995.

Face; My Young Volcano [1990/91]
Inked handmade paper worked with chalk primer and conte, each 113 x 78 cms
Donated by the Connectus Komonia Trust 1995

These works were inspired by the landscape of Iceland; a land of contrasting ice and fire, with its desolate landscapes, lava fields, glaciers and steaming geysers. Iceland is an unstable part of the earth's crust, and the activity which formed the country still continues. In comparison to these powerful natural forms, mankind can seem insignificant. John Montague writes: 'Artists roam the earth as never before, seeking to unleash energies inside, or confront those outside; an enormous intuitive effort to understand ourselves and our world.' Maud Cotter first expresses her ideas in drawings before working through the same themes in glass, steel and bronze sculpture.