Marion Kalmus
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Marion Kalmus is a British artist who produced work between 1993 and 2002. After a first profession as a fresco restorer, Kalmus studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London.[1][2] Whilst still a student she was commissioned to make a work at the Royal Festival Hall, London[1] She won the Nicholas and Andre Tooth Scholarship[3] and used the prize to film her work Deserter[4] which was shown at the Tate Liverpool 1995.[1][5]
Digital art
Kalmus was the Kettle's Yard Artist Fellow in Residence at Pembroke College 1997-1998.[6][7][8] Kalmus returned to Cambridge in 2000 to stage her surround sound film Restoration Drama at the former Festival Theatre, Cambridge.[9][10] The work was "a silent movie of a play performance, projected in a disused theatre with the sound of a ghostly audience responding aurally to the action on the 'stage'."[11]
In 2002 her work was shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.[12][13] She was nominated for the Jerwood Artist’s Platform 2004.[13]
Kalmus was an early adopter of digital technologies,[2] making computer-controlled artworks in the early 1990s when such technologies in fine art were still very unusual. She was nominated for both Digital Art and Fine Art Sculpture prizes within a year: The Imaginaria Digital Art prize at the Institute of Contemporary Arts 1999[14] and the Jerwood Sculpture Prize for 2001.[1][15] Her work, Deserter, was a "computer-coordinated slide program" in which she is featured as a wandering romantic heroine roaming the sand dunes of Australia. The work incorporated thousands of still images presented in rapid fire onto the surfaces of two-way mirrors.[16]
Sculpture and public art
Her sculpture proposal for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize, titled Before and After, addressed landscape design history, by taking the form of a rock formation that recalled the derelict ruins of Whitley Court, a Victorian Era mansion.[17] The maquette for the sculpture was described as raising "complex questions about the nature of artificial landscape" and the "eternal paradox of art as imitation of nature."[18] Richard Cork of The Times states that Kalmus wants viewers of the work to "meditate on time, nature and change."[19]
Kalmus' permanent architectural installation for the National Botanic Garden of Wales opened in December 2001.[1][20] The work, titled Thirty Three Thousand, Seven Hundred and Ninety Eight, was influenced by ancient Welsh roundhouse structures such as Castell Henllys. The installation incorporates a water feature, reminding visitors to the garden of the importance of water in the natural order.[20] A 15-foot high inverted glass cone protrudes through the round roof of the gatehouse; water cascades down the interior of the cone into a raised circular pool filled with stones. The lighting scheme highlights text that is etched into the glass, describing plants that are in danger of becoming extinct.[21] The title of the work references 33,798 endangered plant species. Kalmus' installation along with two other associated works won a Fountain Society award.[22]