Nichola Kinch’s creative practice revolves around the use of traditional and contemporary craft and manufacturing processes to create objects and installations that explore the ways in which the material world can serve as a metaphor for a psychological one. Through the lens and language of production, she grapples with the making of meaning.

Mother Mold uses reproductive processes such as printmaking, mold making, and casting to create a collection of objects and images that serve as a meditation on transformation and the elements required to catalyze and support change.

Sculptures Cosmic Birther, Double Mother (Mother Lode), and Crown employ the visual language and materials of mold making and casting as a metaphor for reproducing structures of support. When sculptors make large flexible molds of silicone, a secondary form made of plaster, called a “mother mold”, is needed to provide additional support since the pliable silicone shell itself cannot stand alone. This process involves materials that convert from wet to dry, liquid to solid, and soft to rigid, reflecting both the passage of time and geological metamorphoses. Positioning rocks at the center, Kinch creates sculptures that have reverberating layers of silicone and plaster, color and texture — molds that mother. The accrued layers of material womb the rock and create visual echoes of a system of reproduction, support, and reinforcement. The resulting objects hover between topographical model and devotional artifact.

Realm, a collage installation constructed of dissected monoprints, presents a hypothetical landscape that wraps the space, referencing both geological charts and natural history dioramas. The layered topography,  punctuated by a thin horizon and a nod toward world building, suggests the emergence of a terrain that might support the paradigm shift presented by the sculptural elements. The terrain (environment) of our present is changing based on our way of being. With this work, Kinch invites imaginings: What might a mothered landscape look like? What social structure might be born if molded by a model of care and reverberating support?