Artists

Kate Newby

Press release

ARCH is pleased to announce the exhibition "Sand Kills Stones" by Kate Newby. Kate Newby is an artist from Aotearoa New Zealand, based in San Antonio, Texas. Her work brings sculpture into contact with architecture, landscape and the everyday conditions of a place. During her residency at ARCH, Newby collected fragments of glass, rust and other material remnants from around Athens. Working with the natural colours of these materials, she brought clay, glass and metal together, allowing each to respond to heat, water and touch. Glass shards melt in the kiln; sculpted mirrors slump under heat; bronze develops a patina with water; and metal works carried in the pocket change through contact with the hand. Installed across the interior and courtyard of ARCH, the works form a landscape of remnants and additions. In a city shaped by layers of building, erosion and reuse, "Sand Kills Stones" considers how materials act upon one another over time, and what sculpture might do beyond occupying a site: collect water, reflect its surroundings, and create new conditions for things to gather and change. Recent solo exhibitions and major projects include I'm asking, Museum Folkwang, Essen (2026); The Sound of Trees, Portland International Airport (2026); Cold Water, Sharjah Biennial 16 (2025); Hours in wind, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2024); YES TOMORROW, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Wellington (2021); I can't nail the days down, Kunsthalle Wien (2018); and Let me be the wind that pulls your hair, Artpace, San Antonio (2017). Her work has also been included in exhibitions at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Maison Hermès, Tokyo; Blaffer Art Museum, Houston; and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Newby received the Walters Prize in 2012 and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant in 2019, and has undertaken residencies at the Chinati Foundation, Artpace, Fogo Island Arts, and the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York.