Local artist Kate MacKenzie has taken out the coveted top prize for the second time at this year’s World of Wearable Art (WOW) competition. She first won in 2014.
MacKenzie is among 21 award winners, with more than $185,000 of prize money on offer, across three recurring sections, Aotearoa, Avant-garde and Open, as well as three new sections in 2022: Architecture, Elizabethan Era and Monochromatic.
WOW is New Zealand’s most spectacular theatrical stage production. This year’s show included over 100 dancers, kapa haka performers (Ngāti Pōneke) and aerialists, as well as spectacular headline performances by New Zealand musicians Estère, and Sharn Te Pou.
MacKenzie won for her piece Wanton Widow, made out of a 19th Century china cabinet and old Singer sewing machine, and which she had been working on since 2019 before the last event was cancelled due to Covid restrictions.
Speaking to BayBuzz, MacKenzie said she had to pinch herself.
“It’s not an easy competition to be selected as a finalist and it’s only getting harder. Who knew? I can’t even sew! But in hindsight, it was a special piece and I was really happy with it.”
MacKenzie said she likes to delve back into the past and draw it into the now, because the process always brings up an interesting story.
She had always wanted to transform a china cabinet into a garment for WOW, and to complement the idea she was inspired by an old Singer sewing machine that her mother had restored.
“I looked at this and thought that would be beautiful in a bodice and I imagined the three draws as sleeves. I found both on Trade me. I had a basic idea of what it would look like, especially the back and the wheel.”
The character emerged over time she said. China cabinets were used to display a family’s wealth, and MacKenzie had been pondering what It would have been like to be a widow in mourning in that period.
“So, she became this widow in the 19th Century, grieving and wearing black for over a year and she felt like getting out again. Ready to maybe find another love in her life, but she didn’t feel that the mourning protocols were going to allow it and she became a bit of a rebel or perhaps a trail blazer. That’s the person I was channelling. The defining moment in my WOW story was that line: ‘She’s fragile China, for display only’.”
In a media statement the Judges said: “We are in awe of the designer’s resourcefulness in use of the vintage china cabinet and Singer sewing machine drawers. It perfectly captures what we mean when we say wearable art. It is refined, sculptural and tells a story.”
MacKenzie was awarded $30,000 for her work. However, the garment now belongs to WOW.
I asked her if she intends to enter the competition again, but she said she couldn’t answer that question. She may have a year off, or she may be finished with it for good.
“I just go with my energy. And I have my other work to focus on.”
MacKenzie’s main art practice is oil painting on canvass, both landscape and portraits. For the last five years she has leaned more towards surrealist portraits. She has un upcoming solo exhibition in November at Muse gallery in Havelock North.
A judge in Hawke’s Bay’s edible fashion awards, she said the design talent in the region is world class, and she hopes that some of its designers will get into WOW and be successful in the future.
For the next three weeks, the TSB Arena stage will come alive with this year’s 88 finalist entries by 103 designers representing 20 countries and regions around the world.
Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.
Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images.