Cattle

Commissioned essay by Tara McEvoy in response to Maria McKinney's art practice.

Tara McEvoy is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and for 2022 is a Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow at Queen's University Belfast. She co-founded and edits The Tangerine, a Belfast-based magazine of new writing. Her work has appeared in publications including the Times Literary Supplement, Frieze, Vogue, Poetry London, 3:AM, and the Stinging Fly.

Maria McKinney’s practice involves responding to context. For the past few years, her work has been particularly focused on agriculture and cattle breeding. This work has crossed over into research about the ongoing and deepening understanding of genetics, how this understanding is being applied, and the wider societal implications. Her work has led her to engage directly with farmers and geneticists to create work in relation to what they do. She uses different media in her practice, although she is primarily driven by sculptural impulses. In the last few years, the objects she has made are only completed when worn on a body. This approach is further tested as interventions in live agricultural events. She uses photography and video to document these moments of coalescence between body and sculpture. The materials McKinney chooses to work with are selected because of their typical function in the world. She devises a process of interacting with the material, frequently with some type of handcraft approach. Using her hands to make has always been an important aspect of her practice - when engaging with people outside the studio to develop a project this acts as a kind of gesture towards them and what they do and a means of opening up communication.