“Sacred” by the wonderful Kate Alterio is the latest piece to catch our eye! Its originality speaks volumes as not only being a stunning contemporary piece, but also boasting deeply symbolic meanings.
Kate Alterio is a New Zealand-based artist whose journey has led her to explore many different styles and mediums. Kate began with jewellery making, before moving into painting and now more recently has progressed into photography. She views each medium from a different perspective seeing the precision of jewellery, the fluidity of painting and the ability to capture and hold time using photography.
Kate seeks to connect the physical and spiritual worlds through her work bringing the formless into the world of form, and exploring various themes such as diversity, spirituality and human interconnectedness.
There is often a journey Kate explores whilst creating her work, with an overall intention to create a “sense of stillness and potency, that invites viewers to feel a corresponding resonance within themselves”. Kate’s work is held and shown in both private and corporate collections in New Zealand and overseas.
Sacred
Sacred is Kate’s ode to the honey bee. Kate stresses bees are essential to our survival and symbolize unity, renewal, immortality, resurrection, new beginnings and community. We have a lot to learn from these small yet powerful insects.
Historically bees and beehives have been held in high esteem throughout the world. Bees have an incredible work ethic and function in harmony to achieve a common goal. They support not only their colony but also enable the human race to thrive by perpetuating floral growth and pollinating agricultural goods, and by producing honey, bee propolis, royal jelly and wax. Without them the world as we know it would be a very different place. The relationship that bees have with nature is one of benefit and enhancement, a beautiful illustration of unity and working towards the greater good.
Bees are incredible architects and mathematicians. Sacred geometric forms are the basic building blocks of our universe so it’s no surprise that these tiny insects chose a hexagon for the hive. Not only is it a sacred form but the hexagon is also the most efficient shape as it stores the most amount of honey while using the least amount of wax, which indicates the deep intelligence of bees.
To create the effect of shading and different dimensions Kate has used a combination of 24ct yellow gold leaf, 23ct red gold leaf, 22ct moon gold leaf and 22.5ct champagne gold leaf. The red gold’s slightly darker and richer tone adds the dimension to the piece while the softer lighter tones of moon and champagne gold create a shading effect.
This piece is incredibly eye catching whilst holding a deep, significant meaning, and we hope Kate continues to create such great pieces in the near future!