Katherine L. Ross

A mound of over 1,300 porcelain bars of soap lies on the floor. White porcelain can appear antiseptic, sterile and cold while also conveying notions of purity, cleanliness and value. Porcelain is most often found in locations involving water and the body, such as bathrooms, surgeries, kitchens, and pools.

We all engage in small daily rituals of self-cleansing.  The overabundant ghostlike, mysterious mound of soap can serve to evoke thoughts on the purpose and multiple meanings of cleansing and the purification of the self, from the most practical to mythological and spiritual references.

The video, an endless repetition of hand washing and waves coming to shore, broadens the act of cleansing the body to include environmental cleansing.  The black and white, very slow, grainy film becomes a dreamlike psychological site for contemplation in contrast to the physical presence of the porcelain objects.

Katherine L. Ross, Artist Statement

Katherine L. Ross is a conceptual artist who uses ceramics as her primary medium to create haunting site-specific installations. Currently the Chair of the Ceramics Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Katherine Ross is concerned with the psychology of water, cleansing, hygiene, and contamination.  Her artistic focus is the investigation of the body in relation to nature, and she frequently draws upon water as a metaphor for human psychological conditions such as anxiety, transcendence, and purification.   She works in slip cast porcelain, digital glaze decals, and video, and is an expert in porcelain production for large installations—clearly demonstrated by the 1,300 bars of soap produced for Water Cure.

Ross has explored the issue of cleanliness in previous works. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s take on the American cultural preoccupation with over sterilizing our environment, published in The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena in 1993, made a deep impression on her.  That interest was translated into a 2000 installation titled Prophylaxis/Hygiene that examines the psychology of the cleanliness of our environments from a somewhat critical perspective.  Does over sanitizing our environments lead to a disconnection to the natural environment?  Do humans not need some equilibrium with the microbial world?

Water Cure is another take on hygiene: handwashing is a task that takes place many times a day.  Bars of soap are familiar tactile objects, their various shapes and even fragrances associated with both old and new memories.  White is the color that most connotes ideas of purity and cleanliness.  If we are blessed to live in a developed country, water is pumped safely in our homes.  In nature, water ebbs and flows in rivers, lakes, and the ocean.  The “cure” that Ross alludes to in her title is the renewal that washing our hands offers us on a daily basis, reinforced by the looping black and white film projection of soapy hands and waves upon the beach.  Washing our hands provides us the opportunity to balance ourselves within our environments.  Water Cure is a chance to consider that balance.