Katrina Borroff
(Nottingham & London Exhibitions)

Twenty year old Katrina Borroff was born and raised on the doorstep of Sherwood forest. Inspired by films like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, which opened the door to her vivid imagination, she spent most of her childhood running through the forest pretending to be a Gelflin imagining other worlds. Katrina is currently studying for a BA(HONS) Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University.

Katrina works sculpturally using found objects, taxidermy, wire and rubbish, which she binds and binds until the form is shaped. With each of her spindly, macabre creations she aims to capture a state inbetween skeletal decay and volumptuous womanhood, so whilst being attractive and beautiful they are also repulsive. She admits to an unexplained love and drive to create these macabre beings and it is her purpose to bring them to life.

Katrina is inspired by life, the forest she lives next to and the films she has seen. Todd Browning's film Freaks inspired, shocked, and enticed her in equal measures, she fell in love with the eerie theatrical sets of Le Belle et la Bette and a big inspiration for her sculptures were the skeletal forms juddering across the screen in Jan Svankmier's animated film of Alice In Wonderland. Artists that inspire Katrina include Joel Peter Witkin, Camille Rose Garcia, Thomas Truax's mechanical musical instruments and Mark Ryden's spiritual, pop cultural, ghoulish paintings and sculptures.

Katrina's work for Danse Macabre will be inspired by the ballet Coppelia (from E T A Hoffmans's Der Sandman and Die Puppe) in which a mysterious and faintly diabolical inventor, Doctor Coppélius makes a life-size dancing doll that is so beautiful and life-like that a local boy falls deeply in love with her and he becomes so entranced he forgets his true love.