Reviews
Thelma Goode on Lifedrawing, EdinburghGuide.com, Dec 11th 2001
“Tight in execution and conception, Stannard’s work provoked interest and thought. The humor was well judged and ironic as she treated her body and a supermarket chicken to the danger and reality of injury and mutilation…this was the one that made me glad I’d gone to Glasgow.”
Mary Brennan on Missing Things, ‘The Herald’, March 23 2004
“Stannard evolved an outstanding installation across seven hours. White sliced bread and red thread: white carnations reddning in vases of ink: from these simple beginnings Stannard organised rows of profoundly significant, symbolic objects. They read like a manifesto of what’s coming unstitched in our society”
Martin Holmes Eden Mencap (2004) on Mencap community project.
“Kate’s outstanding commitment to detail ensured that she fully understood the support needs of our group members before devising a most imaginative and creative programme of activities.
Her ability to guide, motivate and lead the support worker team; her understanding of boundaries and the confident way in which Kate delivered the activities all outstanding! I cannot stress enough how positive Kate’s involvement was with our group.”
Mary Brennan on In a moment, ‘The Herald’, Feb 14 2006
“Kate Stannard’s one-to-ones lasted as long as the ice-cube she wrapped into your palm. Dangling strings of glinting ice-cubes pitter-pattered time’s passing on to rusting cans, the ice gradually pooling the floor with cold tears as Stannard invited participants into a sharing of thoughts on mortality, memory, change and decay. Mouldering flowers, still perfumed but hinting of decomposition, marked out where previous folk had sat – we came, went but, as Stannard intended, left something of our passing even as we carried memories of our interaction away, into our future. This piece was full of sad wisdom about the nature of transience and yet it resonated with a celebratory awareness of how each moment is, or should be, valued as a gift….Stannard is, despite her young age, already an artist of genuine stature whose work makes living poetry out of what she sees around her…”
Maxie Szalwinska on In a moment, Guardian, Thursday 16 February 2006
‘Kate Stannard’s piece is set in a cavernous space hung with strings of ice that glow like pearls. The show lasts as long as it takes for an ice cube to melt in your hand. Suffused with the sense that “there’s something we should say”, the performance is about pleasure, pain and transience. During the one-to-one encounter, Stannard holds your arm up in the air. My shoulder started to ache, time seemed to expand and shrink, and for a second I felt, crazily, as if I was dangling from a cliff-edge.’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2006/feb/16/fringetheatre
Lyn Gardner on RAW(body as machine) at NRLA 2010, 22-3-10 ‘But I saw the future, too: Kate Stannard cycling 860 miles to nowhere on a fixed bike over five days in RAW, a reflection on over-achievement and physical perfection’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/mar/22/national-review-of-live-art
Mary Brennan on RAW(body as machine) at NRLA 2010, 23-3-10 ‘Kate Stannard pedalled furiously for five days in a static account of RAW, the famous (infamous?) 860-mile endurance bike race across America. As an image of obdurate willpower, physical exertion to the point of exhaustion, even pain, Stannard’s cycling caught both the driven nature of the competitive athlete and the artist compelled to make statements through their own flesh’, http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/arts-ents/stage-visual-arts/reviews-1.1015374#
