Prior to attending The Slade School of Fine Art, Icy White grew up in an agricultural working town in Norfolk. The mood of her community is often set by the physical surroundings – the ground; the harvest; the herd. Life is practical, un-squeamish and their relationship with the world is instinctively physical, which is mirrored in the relationship between Icy and her practice. Living under Norfolk’s big skies has afforded Icy space to roam, take risks and explores the body’s position within them. This has intuitively followed through to her creative process where she questions her surroundings, explore ideas inspired by the environment, then researches broader contexts to inform her work.
Icy’s practice is driven by the search to comprehend the incomprehensible human condition. By interrogating the basic involuntary human functions we cannot control, such as sleep, exploring the corporeal to seek out the tensions that lie within the raw spaces in both body and psyche. With playful curiosity she manipulates and crafts materials and found objects to grapple with these tensions, unearthing hidden energies and viscerally weaving them into broader cultural contexts. She finds comforting balance and solidity of form to give audiences a sense of relief from today’s unstable world.
Icy White 