Worry Worlds
Opens Saturday, 5th April 2025 and runs until Saturday, 31st May.
In Worry Worlds, Annita & Samantha McKee confront the urgent realities of climate change through immersive sculptural installations and vivid underwater photography. Reflecting the interconnectedness of human activity and ecological wellbeing, their porcelain globes represent the fragile balance between destruction and renewal, prompting collective reflection and action. This exhibition resonates deeply with the theme of interwoven ecologies, offering a sensory journey through ecological anxiety towards a vision of restorative hope.
Worry Worlds is a collaborative exhibition of porcelain globes and underwater photographs addressing climate change. Our goal is to inspire thought and dialogue, moving away from despondency and encouraging action. If we do not worry, we remain passive, and the world continues to face the threat of destruction, reaching a point of no return.
Recent natural and manmade disasters, from fires to floods, highlight humanity's consumption and abuse of nature. Pollution is now a global issue, affecting land, seas, rivers, and skies. In our work, we unite 'worlds' in the hope of regeneration, replenishment, and protection of our planet. By visualizing vulnerable areas and raising awareness, we aim to drive efforts for change. Restoring lands, oceans, and nature contributes to restoring our minds, reducing climate anxiety and creating a less worrisome world.
Underwater photographs taken by Annita whilst taking her chairs scuba diving show the beauty and thriving ecosystems of marine life. Chairs, a familiar everyday object where we rest and communicate, represent individuals providing a portal into another world. Images provide hope that it is not too late. These are accompanied by sounds she recorded from the underwater world.
Porcelain and stoneware worlds are hand-built, sculpted, and slip-cast. Topographical and abstracted images are drawn and printed, with text applied from researched interpretations of significant events and future scenarios. Some words are pressed into surfaces, others printed and transferred. Carved areas with geographically focused adornment reveal localized transformation imposed by mankind while remaining aesthetically pleasing. The Anthropocene is evident in some, with geologically battered surfaces. Metal display stands resembling cages house two large worlds, symbolizing mankind's dominance. Other worlds sit passively on benches or erupt from the surface, still gripped by steel.
Worry Worlds reflects on the state of our planet—past, present, and future. We advocate for a review of 'how we do life' while reminding people of the awe-inspiring beauty that remains on Earth.
As artists and sisters, we have collaborated on this new body of work titled 'WORRY WORLDS' for the Courthouse Gallery. We advocate for the re-evaluation of HOW WE DO LIFE whilst reminding people of the awe-inspiring beauty that remains on our planet. In this instance, WORRY is a good state—knowledge leads to action.
Annita & Samantha McKee Biographies
Annita and Samantha Mckee work together from their ‘Two Minds’ studio in County Down. They have been collaborating since 2018 in group exhibitions showing sculptures, prints and underwater images. Exhibitions include ‘Mother Earth’, Strule Arts Centre (2023) and B410 at Arts for All, Belfast (2022) and Catalyst Arts Belfast. Exhibits included mono-prints, underwater prints, porcelain sculptures and an underwater video showing sea creatures interacting with porcelain chairs. Recently they exhibited two world, porcelain sculptures accompanied by photographic prints.
Samantha graduated with a 1st Class Hons in Graphic Art from Anglia University Cambridge in 1997. Her prints, drawings, and sculptural installations with accompanying texts have focused on emotions of the brain and mind alongside the anomalies which fester and arise through them. She has an extensive portfolio of group and solo exhibitions including Ireland and was selected to exhibit with Paula Rego at a contemporary print exhibition, St Davids Hall, Cardiff.
Her first solo exhibition was in 2004 at the Golden Thread gallery showing sculpture and 2- dimensional artworks together with a commissioned soundtrack. She continued to seek spaces to accommodate large-scale, immersive installations, collaborating with musicians to bring an added dimension to her works. In the underground chambers at Lagan Weir, Belfast, Samantha installed ‘Preserves of The Minds Larder’ (2005). She planned the lighting within the chambers and commissioned a soundtrack by Thomas Conyngham from Dundalk. In 2006 Samantha was selected to collaborate with musicians at Sonic Arts Research Centre in Belfast as part of the Sonorities Festival. She did a performance within her own created stage set. In 2008 she had a solo exhibition showing sculptures and text pieces in the underground gallery of the Basement at Dundalk Town Hall. She designed and installed specific lighting. Her latest large-scale installation was a two-person show spanning the cells of an entire wing of Crumlin Road Goal (2009). This involved planning and installations with site-specific lighting to prompt an emotional and visceral response.
Annita graduated in 2019 with a 1st class honours in Ceramics from Ulster University, Belfast. She won the Richard K Degenhardt Belleek Award in 2018 and was shortlisted for Future Makers in 2020. She has continued to exhibit in group shows, including juried selections. In 2021, she exhibited her underwater images on archival rag paper alongside porcelain sculptures at Glor, Ennis. Seven large-scale underwater prints accompanied by porcelain, sea-inspired sculptures. Annita was selected to exhibit a large ceramic sculpture titled ‘Balancing Act’ at Sculpture in Context, Botanical Gardens, Dublin in 2021. Porcelain sculptures titled ‘Past, Present & Future’ were exhibited in the ‘Verus’ exhibition, United Nations Geneva, Switzerland, and three pieces are held in their collection. In 2022, she was selected to represent Design Nation UK in a graduate show at the Heart Gallery, Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire. Annita exhibited a large-scale chair and smaller sculptures in the ‘Climate Change’ show at the Pyramid Gallery, York (2022).
The studio is self-sufficient and runs as sustainably as possible. A large kiln is powered by solar panels using generated electricity for most of the firing. All clay is recycled. Facilities include a printing press and equipment required to fulfil our creative endeavours.
