Magnhild Kennedy works with masks as autonomous works of art as well as action-objects. The mask is a place where different elements come together as a situation. The work is about this place-situation, more so than the mask as a theme or category of form. The mask is a place.
Kennedy is led by the phantasms appearing in the process of the making and the materials themselves. These guide the decisions and inform the objects created. The becoming of character as play, in between the theatrical projective and the actual of the veil, has the effect that the masks equally are subject to the projection of others as well as one’s own. It is in this space that the objects exist and where she find new ones.
For her it is about the materials and how to organize them in a small area so that in the end, they communicate something. Her interest lies in decorating a space more than a body or a face. The whole process starts with a material she gains interest in. She connects with materials on an emotional level. Instead of drawing or sketching, just sculpting and letting the materials lead the way. She searches for her fabrics and finds objects in different spaces, whether it is in a piece of antique clothing, which she’ll completely take apart, or cheap plastic trinkets from the £1 shop.
