Kate McKay is a ceramicist who lives and works on Ngunnawal Country in the village of Collector, NSW. McKay predominantly makes vessels for everyday use with her foundational practice revolving around an intense focus on process. From that, opportunities for exploration beyond the functional realm present themselves.
Through the extended time involved in this formation, she tweaks glaze recipes and tests clay bodies. Through this endless testing, repetition, and experimentation, other sculptural and experiential ideas are also born. Across her practice Mckay honours daily rituals through the use of considered, beautiful objects reflecting a deep interest in the ability of hand-made and well-considered plates, bowls and cups to elevate the elemental nature of sharing food and drink to something beyond the merely functional.
McKay was recently awarded the Veiolia Mulwaree Trust Creative Arts Scholarship (2022); exhibited in Earthbound, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, curated by Hannah Gee; and was a finalist in the National Emerging Art Prize (2021).
