Kathryn Rose is a recent fine art graduate of Nottingham Trent University. Rose hopes to put across themes of the uncanny and craft in her work, aiming to create pieces which are both ugly and beautiful at same time and make an audience want to believe that they could be alive.

Rose is constantly fabricating creatures to add to her fantastical menagerie. She breathes life into old fabrics and materials to create creatures which seems to possess a sense of life as well as a sense of self. Many of the creatures appear tactile due to the fabrics and furs used, they have a quality which makes you want to reach out and touch, stroke and interact with them. Each piece is hand crafted using a variety of techniques and materials which Rose deems appropriate for that individual creature; she will often hoard fabrics away until she feels inspired and certain that she knows what this should become.

Rose’s upbringing has greatly influenced her work. Her mother is currently breeding chickens to try and produce pink egg shells, having already succeeded in breeding chickens which produce green egg shells. Rose says“There is something fantastical about the idea of a chicken producing green eggs, as if we can only imagine that we ourselves could create something like this and nature could not. There is something fascinating about this idea of reality and fabrication, that even in real life the lines are naturally blurred and things can seem naturally uncanny.”

Rose was brought up around love, care, curiosity and wonder. There was always something new being born but there was always something dying as well and perhaps that is where the dark humour in her work comes from; the idea that life is fleeting but we all get hung up on things such as what is socially acceptable. Life is perceived as glorious and precious but it all has to end and we all have to die, not only humans but animals and plant life too. We all have an expiration date, but her creatures do not; as they are not really alive, they cannot die.