| My work consists of wall-based sculptures that are made up of intricately crafted components often tinged with somber qualities. I use words and familiar sayings as a starting point to create sculptures tinged with a tongue-in-cheek approach to language. Language is a set of recognized symbols that enable us to communicate with one another. However, it is completely abstract in form. Investigating the semiotics of communication as a vehicle in which to convey abstract meaning and associations of desire, I explore the boundaries surrounding the dual aspect of my work—the associations created between the imagery and an abstract form of communication. | 
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Kate Street
Kate Street, Bird in the Hand II, 2007. Plaster, modelling clay, bird parts, and oil paint. Courtesy of Nettie Horn Gallery, London.
My work consists of wall-based sculptures that are made up of intricately crafted components often tinged with somber qualities. I use words and familiar sayings as a starting point to create sculptures tinged with a tongue-in-cheek approach to language. Language is a set of recognized symbols that enable us to communicate with one another. However, it is completely abstract in form. Investigating the semiotics of communication as a vehicle in which to convey abstract meaning and associations of desire, I explore the boundaries surrounding the dual aspect of my work—the associations created between the imagery and an abstract form of communication. My Natures Mortes merges elements that are not merely contemporary symbols but also the visual representations of my response to language—the resulting sculpture, which, at first glance, is a baroque and intricate object, on close inspection begins to play with our most basic insecurities and discomforts.
In the form of funeral wreaths, intended to mark the demise of something or someone, the works from the Little Death series paradoxically signify demise, and yet build a monument to the referred (given in the title). However, with names such as Eye-eye and The Birds and the Bees, the works seem to be tongue-in-cheek. The overall title for the series, Little Death, originates from the French term for orgasm, petite morte. With this series I am trying to strike a balance between the theatrical and the absurd, the romantic and the deathly.
It is presumed that something achieved and attained, has more worth than a simple desire. The suggestion is that you should be grateful for what you have, but for some reason, it is human nature to analyze, to dissect, and compare our attainments with others’. We need to pull apart the components, searching for the root of our wants and needs. Most of us, however, have little understanding of what that actually is. This idea of misunderstood desire and aspiration has always played a key part in my practice, as is the case with the search for meaning, exemplified in my work, Bird in the Hand.
