Biography

Situated within the expanded field of painting Natasha Kidd makes automated paintings systems or machines.  Using arterial systems of pipes and pumps these mechanisms fill paintings from the inside. This practice based research emerges out of a desire to make visible the process, action and event of painting itself and to place the viewer directly inside production. These ideas form the basis for her doctoral project at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University that is taking a close look at these automated painting systems and exposing their production through the form of a manual.  The project focuses its attention on the “construction” of one object but in doing so wants to consider what thinking through making and practice as research looks like.

Natasha is Course Leader of the BA Fine Art Course at Bath School of Art and Design.
She is an Associate Lecturer on the BA Fine Art course at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

Natasha lives and works in Oxford

 

Education
2012 – ongoing
University of Oxford
D-phil in Fine Art

1996 – 98
Slade School of Fine Art
M.F.A. Painting

1992 – 96
Slade School of Fine Art
B.A. (Hons) First Class

 

Selected Exhibitions
2015
Painting in Time, The Tetley, Leeds

2014
Test Run, Modern Art Oxford
Detail, touring exhibition to H Project Space, Bangkok, The Collection, Lincoln
A little Patch of Yellow Wall, Lamb and Lion, London
The Machine Aesthetic, touring exhibition to Gallery North, Newcastle, Transition, London, Norwich University of the Arts, Arts University Bournemouth, University of Lincoln

2013
Chapter, Austin Forum, London
I do, PG Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey

2012
The Devil Makes Work for Idle Hands, Toomey Tourell, San Francisco
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy Galleries, London
Uncommon Ground, Meinblau Gallery, Berlin

2010
Interior Life, Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury

2009
Mob Remedies, Primo Alonso, London
In with the New, Camden Arts Centre, London

2008
Same as it ever was….., Chelsea Space, London

2006
Celeste Painting Prize, London
The Art of White, commissioned installation, The Lowry, Manchester

2005
For and From, The Metropole Galleries, Folkestone
Wunderkammer, The Collection and Usher Gallery, Lincoln

2004
Rising Main, Bonington Gallery, Nottingham

2002
Showcase I, Disused Military Hospital, Millbank, London

2001
British Abstract Painting, Flowers East Gallery, London
Playing Fields, Laing Public Art Gallery, Newcastle

2000
Tate Modern, London
Microswitch, Houldsworth, London
One Miles Time, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin
Art2000, Houldsworth, Islington Design Centre, London

1999
New Contemporaries 99, Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, Liverpool
New Contemporaries 99, Beaconsfield Gallery, London

 

Selected Pedagogic Projects
2014
Commissioned by Tate Modern Learning in collaboration with Jo Addison to produce Noticer: A Live Resource for Tate’s International Summer School

2012
Commissioned by Tate Modern Learning in collaboration with Jo Addison to produce Live Resource, a live and continually changing educational resource
Commissioned by Tate Modern Learning in collaboration with Jo Addison to produce “e” an interactive resource/publication to accompany the Alghiero Boetti retrospective

2011
Part of a year-long research project at Tate Modern that considered points of intersection between artist’s practices and learning

2010
Commissioned by Tate Modern Learning in collaboration with Jo Addison to produce You Just Have to Try It and See If It Works, an interactive resource/publication to accompany the Baldessari retrospective

 

Conference Papers
2016
Co-presented with Jo Addison, Misunderstanding, Misinterpretation, Failure and Disappointment. The Unstable Intersection Between What is Instructed and How It Is Interpreted, National Association of Fine Art Educators (NAFAE) Conference, London

2015
Co-presented with Jo Addison, On Specialisation, Leeds College of Art
Curious about Care, Painting in Time Symposium, The Tetley Gallery, Leeds,

2013
In site of Conversation, Towards an Avant Guardist Conception of Gallery Education Symposium, Tate Modern Painting Sites and Processes, Paint Club, University of the Arts, London

2012
Co-presented with Jo Addison, The And Thing, a paper that reflected on the role of the artist commissioned learning resource, Engage International Conference 2012, Cardiff.
Co-presented with Jo Addison, By Instruction, a paper that reflected on No Working Title, a collaborative project between four UK art schools and an international curator, ELIA, Teachers Academy International Conference, Porto.

 

Prizes and Residencies
2006
Winner of the Celeste Art Prize

2000
Research Fellow, Chelsea College of Art

 

Collections
The Collection, Art and Archaeology in Lincolnshire
John Moores

 

Selected Publications
Monochrome, Darkness and Light in Contemporary Art (2015) Craig Staff, published by LB Tauris & co ISBN: 978 1 78453 048 8 HB
Same as it ever was (2008), ed. Mathew Collings
(Detail) (2014) Published by Transition Editions, London
Interview with Natasha Kidd (2015) Re:Sculpt, International Sculpture Centre
Failing to Fail (2014) Garage Land (Machines issue xvi) published essay
Celeste Art Prize 2007 (2007), ed. Sara Pearce, Stampa Baldesi
Celeste Art Prize 2006 (2006), ed. Sara Pearce, Stampa Baldesi
Wunderkammer: The Artificial Kingdom (2005), ed. E Allington, The Collection Art and Archaeology in Lincoln, ISBN 0-9539238-4-3
Whitechapel Creative Connections (2005), ed. Helen Lloyd, Whitechapel Art Gallery
Rising Main: Natasha Kidd (2004), ed. Lisa Urwin, Nottingham Trent University, ISBN 1-84233-047-0
British Abstract painting 2001 (2001), ed. M Collings, Momentum, ISBN 1 902945 271
New Contemporaries 99 (1999), ed. B Bytheway, New Contemporaries 1988 Ltd, ISBN 0 9515556 85

 

Selected Reviews
This is Tomorrow, (July 2015) Painting in Time
Matthew Hearn http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/painting-in-time
The Spectator (14th Jan 06) That Elusive Something, Laura Gasgoine
Guardian Unlimited (Jan 26th 06) White Matters, Anita Sethi
Guardian (12th Jan 06) The Art of White, Alfred Hickling
Guardian (12th Nov 05) The Art of White, Exhibition Preview
Frieze (Issue 66) Dream Machines, Ed Allington
Telegraph Magazine (Sept 16th 01) The Power of Paint, Colin Gleadell
Time out (12 April 00) Microswitch, Gilda Williams
Evening standard (March 15th 00) Microswitch, Helen Sumpter
Irish Times (28 September 00) One Miles Time, Aiden Dunne
Frieze (Issue 50, February 00) New Contemporaries, Jonathan Jones
Time Out (8 December 99) New Contemporaries, Sarah Kent