Katherine James is best known for her works in chainmail. She endlessly disrupts the symbolic power of armour to express her thoughts on contemporary topics such as gender ideology, resilience and beauty. Her collections have included chainmail that has been manipulated into lace-like patterns, another where pieces are melted it into semi-liquified molten forms and works which appear chaotic and border on illegible pattern. Katherine applies her processes across scales and fields of practice, creating everyday wearable jewellery, conceptual worn works and sculptures.

The Endangered Crafts exhibition will feature one of Katherine’s most ambitious works, the Lace Armour Pandemic Mask. It is an imagined progression of the functional masks we wore during the height of covid infections, transformed to become a statement jewellery fashion piece. The mask is crafted from her signature chainmail-lace. It blends the delicate typically feminine patterning of lace with a resistant exterior associated with masculine aggression.