Sculptor Spotlight – The story behind the work

Katherine Rutecki is an accomplished sculptor whose practice spans glass and ceramics, with a particular interest in exploring form, material and the human figure. Her journey as an artist began at a young age and has developed through years of study, experimentation and hands-on experience with these unique materials. In this interview, Katherine shares how she first discovered her passion for sculpture, what draws her to glass and ceramics, and the experiences that have shaped her creative practice.

1. How did you first get into working with glass and ceramics, and what do you love about these materials? I attended a summer workshop in figure drawing and sculpture at the University at Buffalo when I was 16 and learned that I am a sculptor. I earned my BFA at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in Central New York, where I focused on glass sculpture and foundry, and also took ceramic hand-building and slip-casting. What really drew me to glass sculpture is not only thinking about three dimensions, but that in glass, you can think about what it looks like inside the material and how that affects the experience of the artwork.

2. Where do you get the ideas for your glass and ceramic work? My art is often working out feelings and ideas in ways that might be better understood as objects.

3. How does a new glass or ceramic artwork usually begin? Ideas may mill around in my head and then in my notebooks for a while before I come up with a way to express them physically.

4. What’s the most challenging thing about working with glass and ceramics? I have to engineer how each work is made, which is challenging and exciting when it comes together.

5. Is there something about working with glass or ceramics that might surprise people? Both materials have artistic, scientific and physical variables. If you want the work to act and look a certain way, as an artist and practitioner, I have to draw on all my past experiences, successes and failures to know how to approach what I’m making. So, if something might seem really intuitive and free-form, it’s that way because of everything that’s led to it.

6. What are you working on at the moment, and is there a piece you’ve made recently that you particularly like? I’m working on a body of work I’m currently calling fisher-girl. They are figurative works – body parts that are broken off, inspired by old Victorian marble sculptures in Auckland parks that have undergone many repairs over the years. Some of the works function as a fountain, evoking the connection or continuation of the body from which it was dismembered. The works sometimes reference specific sculptures, but are not copies; they are my own compositions using life models as reference.

My latest work is a wood-fired stoneware sculpture, Cross-body Ride, which references The Wrestlers, a Roman marble copy from the 1st Century BCE of the lost 3rd-century BCE Greek bronze sculpture. The Roman marble copy is attributed to Lysippus.

7. Where can people see or find your work, both in person and online? At Public Record in Grey Lynn and at Poison Creek Sculpture Park in Otago. My portfolio site is katherinerutecki.com and my Instagram is @katherine_rutecki_. Cross-body Ride was recently part of Yu-Mei’s exhibition, Objects by Women, at Gow Langsford Onehunga.