Artist: Kaori Kato

The exhibitions at Messums West this December again bring focus to the material of paper, highlighting contemporary artists from across the globe who push the boundaries of this seemingly simple and delicate material to create highly complex, detailed, imaginative sculptural works. Beneath the timber beams of the thirteenth-century tithe barn at Messums West, and alongside a series of architectural constructions by Australian artist and filmmaker Daniel Agdag, there will be a presentation of new work by Japanese contemporary artist Kaori Kato. Kato’s site-specific installation presented at Messums West following her artist residency in 2023 remains one of Messums’ most highly visited exhibitions and she is now returning to Wiltshire from Japan with this new series of work.

Kato draws on the history of paper and the art of folding in the Japanese aesthetic with its traditional use in daily life in Japanese culture, for example in Shoji screens, folding screens and fans. Her contemporary practice brings the history and significance of this making process into new life. She has found inspiration in the sculptural elements of Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake and has taken ideas of design and construction into her own art forms.

Kaori Kato obtained her bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts Drawing in 2008, her bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 2009, and her master’s degree in Visual Art in 2010 from the Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) at the University of Melbourne. She returned to Japan, Hokkaido in 2013, and has since exhibited widely across Japan and internationally, including in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and China. Her wearable paper sculptures were featured in the Vancouver Fashion Week SS 2019 and Western Canada Fashion Week SS 2020 collections, presenting more than twenty distinct designs across the two events.

Kato was a major winner at the Paper on Skin International Wearable Paper Art Competition in Tasmania, Australia, in 2022, and received the Pam and Neil Thorne Award (Award in Honour of Pam and Neil Thorne) at the 2024 edition of the competition. In 2023, she presented a solo exhibition at Messums West where she created site-specific works within the 13th-century barn. The same year, she was appointed Support Ambassador for Makubetsu Town in the Tokachi region of Hokkaido.

In 2024, Kato was commissioned by the historic Swiss watchmaker Vacheron Constantin to exhibit over twelve paper sculptures, including three large-scale installations, across its boutiques in Japan. In 2025, she received the Hokkaido Culture Encouragement Award from the Hokkaido Government and the Obihiro City Cultural Encouragement Award from the City of Obihiro.