Katy Tomiak is a multidisciplinary artist based in Leeds who explores concepts of our temporal existence as part of the Human Condition through functional everyday objects. Using objects of utility which intrinsically hold a suggestion of human existence through their very functionality, such as light switches and handles, she invites the viewer to re-evaluate their relationship to these objects. By questioning human ephemerality in comparison to these everyday objects which will inevitably outlive us, her work focuses on how these seemingly mundane objects innately hold traces of human absence.

Katy’s practice uses both casting and scanning techniques along with collage to achieve reimagined alternatives to these functional objects. Through removing the utility of a functional object, her art explores the absurd moment of reflection initiated in this realisation that these artificial constructs, designed by humans for our use, will invariably supersede our lifespan due to their very materiality. In doing so, this not only opens up wider questions of object agency through Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), but additionally draws on the philosophical notion of memento mori, ‘remember you must die’, by means of assessing our fleeting, temporal place in the existence of time.

Instagram: @ktomiak.art