Katherine James is an artist and jewellery maker based in Leeds. She is best known for her unique re-imaginings of armour, made by crafting chainmail into many different forms and materials to alter its symbolic values. Her chainmail works have varied from lace patterns to semi-melted to chaotic disorder.
Katherine’s practice is engaged with contemporary discourse including issues of gender and mental health. She challenges herself to push the boundaries of her craft, constructing ever more complex and intricate designs, and incorporating new materials. She finds the physical limitations of her process, applying the rules of her craft sparsely to seek what qualifies as chainmail, exploring the hierarchies between art and craft and symmetry and illegible pattern. Her pieces are often highly time-consuming to create and can take weeks and in some cases months to complete. Her expression is not bound by scale and can take the form of body adornments and large-scale sculpture.
Upon graduating in 2020 Katherine was awarded the Berkofsky Art Prize. She has since exhibited sculptures in group shows at the Crafts Council Gallery, Leeds Art Gallery, Sunny Bank Mills, twice at London Craft Week and the RA summer open among other notable shows
