Impossible Creatures
In dialogue with Kate MccGwire
Fvtvrist Magazine // Interview by Elina P.
22 June 2026
For over twenty years, MccGwire has built her practice around a single material: the feather. Collected from gamekeepers, pigeon fanciers, and farms across the country, washed, sorted by size and curvature and colour, stripped of their quills, and laid one by one onto archival paper by an all-female team who have worked alongside her for years. The resulting sculptures, coiling, writhing, breathless forms contained within airtight glass vitrines, look as if they have made themselves. The labour disappears into the surface.
This summer, MccGwire brings two pieces to The Ark, curated by Eric Fischl, at Powerhouse Arts in Brooklyn: Ravish (2023), returning from the show's first iteration in Sag Harbor, and Crepuscular (2019), a new addition made from crow feathers, quieter, more understated, a different register entirely. Fvtvrist spoke with the artist about working on water, the frustration of glass, and what feather still gives her after two decades.
Kate MccGwire studio
© Jo Scott Images, Courtesy of the artist.
Your studio is a barge moored on the Thames. You chose to work on water, surrounded by tides and weather. What does that do to the work that a conventional studio wouldn't?
There are no tides here — just the natural flow of the River Thames moving slowly downstream towards London. I'm completely surrounded by nature; it's an idyllic place where I can watch swans and ducks dabbling along the water, whilst kingfishers streak past in flashes of incredible iridescent plumage. It is my version of heaven.
But being here on the river every day, I also witness the darker side of nature. Seagulls skim low over the water to snatch a newly hatched duckling, while pike hunt silently beneath the surface. What at first appears to be a hopeful and heart-warming scene soon becomes a daily mourning, as another chick, duckling, or cygnet is taken. If a duck manages to raise even one duckling to adulthood, she has done remarkably well; sometimes they are left with none after months of nurture. I've seen foxes take six cygnets in a single attack. It's brutal.
Living here, I am constantly aware of this cycle of life. The beauty of nature, but also its violence. I experience both every day. That tension, that coexistence of wonder and brutality, finds its way into my work as well — into the materials I use, the forms I create, and the presence they hold. My studio gives me that, and I love it.
The studio itself floats on the river. In summer, I open the double doors onto the water and work immersed in everything around me. Yesterday, dragonflies drifted in and out of the studio as I worked — a small reminder that nature is never outside looking in; it is always part of the process.
Ravish, 2023
© Courtesy of the artist.
The feather is one of the most loaded materials in the natural world: flight, vulnerability, beauty, death. At what point did you understand what the material could actually hold? What does it bring for you?
I think a fascination for feathers has been with me from the very beginning of my life as an artist. I remember my young children picking up feathers and tucking them into their hair or hats. In an instant, they were transformed — through imagination alone — into Native American braves. It was such a simple gesture, yet it revealed the extraordinary power that natural objects can hold; their ability to carry meaning, spark stories, and transform the way we see ourselves.
MurMur, 2026
© Courtesy of the artist.
Squall, 2018
© Carvalho, New York. Courtesy of the gallery.
Your earlier installations oozed and spilled toward the viewer: overflow, excess, threat. The more recent cabinet works are tight, breathless, behind glass. What shifted, and how intentional was it?
I have always made two distinct kinds of work: large-scale installations that seep, flow, and occupy space, and tightly knotted cabinet pieces contained behind glass. Both strands of my practice have evolved over time.
The cabinet works have become increasingly intricate, convoluted, and detailed, growing more complex with each iteration. Yet my heart has always lain with making site-specific installations. For the time being, I am waiting for a truly exciting project to come my way before I make any more installations.
The reality is that these installations are extraordinarily demanding. They can take up to four months to make and often require a team of people to focus exclusively on them over a considerable period of time to support me in creating the work and installing it on site. Whilst I love the immersive nature of the work and the way it engages with a particular place, the practicalities make it increasingly complicated.
For now, my focus is elsewhere, but I am open to the possibility of creating an installation if an exciting project, exhibition, or opportunity arises.
The glass vitrines prevent touch entirely. You've said that's part of the work, the prohibition itself. What happens to a sculpture when it can never be physically known?
I agree — there is an incredible lure, intimate warmth and softness to the feathers that you want to experience through touch, but I want there to be a frustration and an un-itched itch. That barrier and prevention leaves you wanting more. On occasion I have provided a touching panel, especially if it is an exhibition where I know children will attend. Seeing people touch the panel with sensitivity, wonder, respect, and awe is truly heart-warming.
The vitrine also protects the work, avoiding the surface being ruffled by clumsy hands, and preventing dust from settling or pest damage. The cabinets are airtight and the glass is UV protected, both of which conserve the work for the long term.
THERE IS AN INCREDIBLE LURE, INTIMATE WARMTH AND SOFTNESS TO THE FEATHERS THAT YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE THROUGH TOUCH, BUT I WANT THERE TO
BE A FRUSTRATION AND AN UN-ITCHED ITCH.
Your all-female team carries out an intensely repetitive, meditative process, feather by feather, hour by hour. How do you think about that labour in relation to the finished object? Is it embedded in the work?
It absolutely is embedded in the work. The team and I get to know our materials on a very precise basis through sorting the feathers into many categories — size, shape, colour, pattern, curvature — then removing the quills, and finally adhering the same category of shape, design, etc. onto archival paper strips. Then we have our palette to start the process of feathering. I have a fantastic all-female team with whom I've worked for many years. Each piece seems to bring us new challenges as the sculptures become increasingly convoluted, time-consuming, and intricate.
This increasing complexity challenges the expertise of both myself and the team, so there is never a dull moment. I love that we are an all-female team working collaboratively, quietly, and with intention — sometimes working on the same piece over many months. What we create together never ceases to amaze me. When the work is complete it looks completely natural, seamless, and calm — almost effortless, as if it has made itself.
Eric Fischl built The Ark around the idea of preservation — what we choose to save. What drew you to that premise, and how does your work speak to it?
Ravish and Crepuscular are definitely animal. They embody the essence of bird but are not avian, they mimic the shapes of snakes or intestines but are neither, and they are reminiscent of the creases and curves of the human body but are clearly not.
The knotted forms could suggest a tender embrace or indeed something more sinister. They cannot be categorised — their method of presentation utilises the language of natural history display but subverts it, as the creature is not a real specimen and the work seems far too big for the enclosure.
The positioning of the feathers recreates the layering on a bird's wing — but it is not a bird — there is no head, no end or beginning. They are impossible creatures, but you also believe that they could be alive. I love that within Eric Fischl's universe, The Ark preserves an array of alternative realities where my Boundary Creatures can thrive.
Coruscate, 2022
© Courtesy of the artist
Ravish returns for this second iteration of The Ark alongside Crepuscular, which is a new addition to the show. What does it mean to bring a work back into a new version of the same exhibition? Does it arrive differently when the context shifts?
I'm really fascinated to see Ravish, previously exhibited in the first iteration of The Ark in Sag Harbor, alongside additional work from my practice and from fellow exhibiting artists. Crepuscular was made in 2018 with crow feathers. The feel of this work is quite different to Ravish in scale and presence — the crow feathers are more subtle and understated than the showy rooster feathers of Ravish.
The Ark in Sag Harbor was phenomenal in its scope, and I was truly honoured to be showing alongside artists whose work I have respected and admired for many years. It is a pinch-yourself moment to be showing alongside artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, William Kentridge, Bruce Nauman, Rosemarie Trockel, Sherrie Levine, Sarah Lucas, Elizabeth Frink, and Maurizio Cattelan, and also to discover artists I hadn't known before. I love the beautiful and sensitive work of Jane Rosen, and I am particularly looking forward to seeing the new additions to the exhibition woven into the curation of The Ark, particularly the works by Wangechi Mutu.
Sag Harbor's The Church and Brooklyn's Powerhouse Arts are very different spaces in scale and history. How does that change what the work is asking of a viewer?
I think the gritty industrial space of the recently opened Powerhouse Arts will provide a significantly different reading of the work. I'm really excited to see that increased edge to the exhibition and the impact of how this environment affects how the pieces are viewed.
Twenty years of working with a single material. What does feather still give you that you haven't yet found?
You'd be surprised, but each time I work with a feather, I am unconsciously conjuring up in my mind other ways of using this ethereal material. Although I do work with other materials, I'm simply not done with exploring the capability of feathers, and I don't envisage that changing.
About Kate MccGwire
Kate MccGwire (b. 1964) is a British, London-based artist who spent her childhood growing up on the Norfolk Broads. MccGwire’s early memories of this distinct landscape, dominated by its wetlands, serpentine waterways and the wildlife that lives along the region's waters, form the foundations of her practice, which is inspired by the cycles, patterns and dualities of nature.
Taking feathers as her primary medium, Kate MccGwire goes through labour-intensive processes of collecting, sorting and cleaning her materials to create muscular, writhing forms reminiscent of Classical sculpture and creatures from mythology. These abject structures explore dualities of aesthetics, being simultaneously seductive and repulsive; form, being simultaneously organic and abstract; and movement, appearing fluid yet being static. Through her practice, MccGwire celebrates feathers, which are commonly shed or discarded, as the medium through which she articulates enigmatic anatomies that explore physical and introspective space.
Speaking on her use of feather as a metaphor for what she terms ‘the duplicity of nature’, Kate MccGwire has said, ‘My work is inspired by the water forming incredible patterns that are there one second and gone the next. Everything is fleeting on the water, it is beautiful but there is danger and treachery underneath the surface. I'm intrigued by that dichotomy.’
Situated within a lineage of female artists who have worked with fiber art, soft sculpture and organic material, Kate MccGwire explores form, space and volume through her work. The artist’s hybrid, ’boundary creatures’ (as termed by Dr. Catriona McAra) often fill their framing devices and appear to writhe within them. On this, MccGwire has said, ‘I am interested in the interplay of opposites which runs like a leitmotif through everything I do. It is as if the work needs that tension to create its own internal equilibrium; it is an expression for me of the duality I see all around me and the materials I choose need to be able to physically embody this.’
