Statement
William Plummer is an artist and writer based in Kansas City, Missouri. They hold a BFA in Fiber and Art History from the Kansas City Art Institute. In 2021, they participated in the Elsewhere residency program as a Kansas City Exchange Fellow. From 2018 to 2020, they collaborated with three other planaria-inspired artists and scientists on the exhibition Body of Inquiry: the Art, Biology, and Being of Flatworms. Plummer’s work is informed by their cross-cultural heritage and queer experience, often exploring themes of projection, translation, and transformation.
Currently working in cyanotype, I create prints using clear film, textiles, drawings, found materials, and my body. I consider each cyanotype a recording, both capturing and obscuring the physical world. Whether it is by drawing, weaving, or writing, I think through granular processes. The through line is an element of translation: translating an image to textile, translating light to paper, or even putting words on a page. I draw inspiration from the coastline paradox, the observation that the more accurately one tries to measure a coastline, the more one zooms in on it, the longer it becomes. I emulate transformations in scale through process, fascinated by singular units that become a cohesive whole.
Bibliography:
- Reality Club Listens Interview (April 2020)
- KKFI Artspeak Radio Interview (January 2020)
- Eyelash-Size, Self-Cloning Animals Inspire A New Show By Kansas City Artists And Scientists (January 2020)
- On the Other Side: Reflections on William Plummer’s Passages to my Ā pó: Transplanted Joss (June 2019)
- 6/6 (m) or 20/20 (ft) Vision: A Conversation with William Plummer (June 2018)