Kate MccGwire b. 1964

_{One of Britain's most distinctive contemporary sculptors, Kate MccGwire has developed an internationally acclaimed practice centred on the transformative possibilities of natural materials. Working with ethically sourced feathers through an exceptionally labour-intensive process of collecting, sorting, cleaning and assembling her materials, she creates powerful, flowing forms that are at once seductive and unsettling, organic yet abstract. Her sculptures explore the dualities that define the natural world: beauty and danger, attraction and repulsion, permanence and transformation.}

_{Raised on the Norfolk Broads, MccGwire’s early experience of its wetlands, serpentine waterways, and rich wildlife continues to inform her practice. Inspired by the shifting patterns of water and the unseen forces beneath seemingly tranquil surfaces, she creates muscular, writhing sculptures that evoke bodily presence, mythological creatures, and imagined anatomies.}

_{Operating between material-led sculpture, the natural world, and the uncanny, MccGwire transforms organic matter into works that are simultaneously seductive and disquieting, their meticulous construction and beguiling surfaces establishing her own singular sculptural language.}

MccGwire's work has been exhibited internationally at leading museums and institutions including the Royal Academy of Arts, Turner Contemporary, the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris, Harewood House, the Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, and the internationally touring exhibition Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses. A major monograph on her work was published by Anomie in 2021. MccGwire's work is currently on view in Venice during the 2026 Venice Biennale period in THE ONLY TRUE PROTEST IS BEAUTY at the Fondazione Dries Van Noten.

Kate MccGwire graduated with an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art in 2004. Her work is held in significant public and private collections worldwide and continues to expand the possibilities of contemporary sculpture through a practice that is simultaneously meticulous, visceral and profoundly poetic.