“2025 West Space Commission”
Katie West
5 July → 23 Aug 2025
Gallery

Katie West, 'The women plucked the star pickets from the ground and turned them into wana (digging sticks)', 2023, installation view, 'The National 4: Australian Art Now', Carriageworks, Sydney.

West Space is proud to present an exhibition that forms the culmination of Katie West’s National Regional Arts Fellowship.

A Yindjibarndi artist on Noongar Ballardong Country in Western Australia, West’s practice is defined by experiments in a ‘custodial ethic’, grounded in the understanding that the health of human society and Country mirror one another.

Realised across textiles, photography, an installation of found objects, weaving, and sound transmitted through radio this new project examines the entanglement of industry and Aboriginal kinships through the artists' position as a Stolen Generations descendant, reconnecting with Country and practicing custodianship through creative practice.

"Katie West has a poetic, gentle and yet political practice, weaving Country through film, found objects and installations.
We are proud to present Katie’s work at West Space, with deep respect for the contribution her practice is making, examining the ongoing impacts of colonisation in so-called Australia, and bringing community and Country into a gallery context." — West Space Director Joanna Kitto

A West Space Commission presented as part of 2025 National NAIDOC Week: The Next Generation: Strength, Vision, Legacy.

Katie West is a Perth-based artist and Yindjibarndi woman who has lived her life in Noongar Yued and Noongar Whadjuk countries. West describes herself as a multidisciplinary artist situated in the social sciences. Her practice is shaped by her family history, studies in sociology and work experience in the area of Indigenous health.