Kate Bickmore: On the Precipice

CHART is pleased to present On the Precipice, a solo show of new paintings and works on paper by Kate Bickmore. The exhibition, the artist’s first solo show in New York and first with the gallery, will open on Friday, September 6th, from 6 to 8pm, and remain on view through Saturday, October 19.

Kate Bickmore creates immersive, large-scale, hyperrealistic paintings of flowers, or florascapes, that take on a new perspective beyond their day-to-day perception. The works, inspired in part by art historical references like Georgia O’Keeffe and hugely influenced by Marianne North—a Victorian-era botanical oil painter—as well as the Hudson River School and 17th-century Baroque painters, draw from Bickmore’s experiences of awe in nature, and through her body as a Highly Sensitive queer woman. By depicting these larger-than-life plants with power, agency, and physicality, Bickmore challenges perceptions of nature and femininity, creating a boundary-less space of exploration and contemplation.

In order to create these majestic works, Bickmore engages in extensive botanical research before exploring her surroundings in search of sublime and awesome encounters in nature. This particular body of work was based on a recent trip to the rainforest of Tambunan, Borneo, hiking up Mount Kinabalu—the tallest mountain in southeast Asia—in an effort to find the rare rafflesia plant. The rafflesia holds the Guinness record for the world’s largest single “flower,” though is technically a parasitic flowering plant, with no roots, stems, or leaves of its own. It’s also incredibly hard to find: Its life cycle lasts up to four years, but it blooms for only four to five days. In a magical moment of serendipity, Bickmore was able to see two of the hefty yet ephemeral plants in close proximity, adding to the drama of her lengthy hunt for an intimate experience with the plant.

Using photos from that adventure, Bickmore collaborates with her florist to create a living floral diorama inspired by the Bornean landscapes, which is documented and turned into digital collages as source material for her compositional studies. The works in On the Precipice are crafted by the slow and meticulous building up of layers of oil paint that allows for representative forms to seemingly recede into an otherworldly place and simultaneously jut out towards our physical plane.

For Bickmore, the precipice represents something both beautiful and terrifying. At that edge, one is in reach of something new and at the end of another. This change, however, doesn’t need to be fearsome, and can present an opportunity to better see and know each other. Viewing ourselves through a naturalistic lens—plants are continuously evolving, and new species are being discovered—can help us realize how we, too, share that same potential for reclassification. These paintings are an appeal for slowing down, inhabiting and listening to our bodies, and letting the flowers guide us towards growth, pushing our way up through the cracks of self-understanding.

About the Artist

Kate Bickmore (b. Albany, New York) is a British-American artist currently living and working between London, United Kingdom, and Rockland, Maine. Bickmore employs vibrant colors, varied textures, and atmospheric light, creating immersive and dynamic florascapes that elevate the presence of flowers, and herself. As a queer woman, Bickmore's work is deeply personal and introspective, as she seeks to understand the intricate relationships between her body and the environments she inhabits. Bickmore received her bachelor’s degree from Hamilton College in Studio Art and graduated with her MFA in Fine Arts from the Royal College of Art. She has exhibited her work in New York City, Miami, London, and Hong Kong.

The artist would love to extend a special thanks to everyone who helped bring the work in the show to life; Phoebe Dean, Grace Hager, Justine Kablack, Andy White, Samuel Thomas, Rachel Darke, and Paul Coster.