Teachers

Kate is interested in interior still life painting, that explores a relationship with an exterior view. Her work is recognised by obscured indoor/outdoor views, coupled with tilted picture planes and ‘tablescapes’ with intense colour and composition combinations.

“My work researches and explores places that hold memory – recording intimate stories of people’s lives and personal spaces. Throughout my professional life, I have been dedicated to artistic exploration and education of all kinds and to the development of creative communities. Through connecting with people and place, I learn more about my own art practice, which paints the sounds, rhythms and vibrations of life.”

During the last few years of teaching, I assisted an art school friend who had just commenced a Japanese landscape design and construction company. Like art I fell in love with it and as a consequence I studied Japanese Landscape and architecture and during the next 8-year period I built some wonderful gardens in collaboration with my art school friend Ken Lamb. I continued my sculpture, painting and drawing practice and exhibiting my work during this period.

I decided to take the plunge into establishing my own landscape business with an emphasis on contemporary gardens.

During many years of landscaping, I designed and built some exciting landscapes with sculptural waterfalls and water features, made with the same sensibility as making a painting or a sculpture. During this period, I studied botany and horticulture which fed into my art practice.

About 28 years ago my passion for painting reawakened, which led to painting canvases every weekend and when time was available. During this period, I entered art prizes and exhibited my work.

grants & commissions
2022 William Fletcher Foundation Support Grant
2021 Artwork commission for The Greens MP Tamara Smith office cards

artist residencies
2025 Eramboo Artist Residency, NSW
2019-21 Dunmoochin Art Foundation, VIC
2018 Beverley Station Arts, W

published writing / accolades
Antithesis,
‘Shine on La Mama Theatre’ article, online, 2021
Antithesis,
‘A painter’s reflections’ personal essay, online, 2021
Antithesis,
‘After fire, with rain’ artwork & essay: Mental, 2020

Voiceworks,
‘the thirst’ short story: Echo, 2015
Judy’s Punch,
‘the moon’ poem, 2014
Shortlisted for the Monash Undergraduate Prize for Creative Writing 2015

writing for performance
Writer/performer: ‘Do not collect $200’
, 24 Moons, Melbourne, 2017
Writer/performer: ‘PARLEY!’
, The Butterfly Club, Melbourne Fringe, 2016
Writer/performer: ‘Do You Want To See Something Beautiful?’
, Bakehouse Theatre, Adelaide
Fringe 2016

When I was about 7 or so, I saw a photo of Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows in an old art book. The painting moved me so much, that in many ways, the moment was imprinted and changed something in me that defined a path for me. Since my Vincent Van Gogh fever has passed, so many artists have inspired, moved and taken me back to that moment in my childhood that motivated me to keep painting.

Where do you currently find inspiration?

Over the last couple of years or so, the late Robert Juniper’s art has inspired me greatly and taught me in many different ways how to tell a story in landscape.

Do you have a theme or favourite subject that you are exploring in your art practice right now?

The compositions of many great artists at the moment, especially Degas and Margret Woodward, their ways of grouping figures/shapes and colours to make an interesting composition as well as John Wolseley and Julie Mehretu’s kind of floating composition to depict the nature and urban environment with various mediums on different surfaces.

What have you been working on lately?

Colours and textures from the nature always fascinate me. My recent focus in art making has been building up surfaces with part random, part studied textures and exploring these layers with the visual elements observed, creating a vestige of a landscape

What inspires you to paint?

Art and life are deeply interwoven, not only in my life, but I believe in society at large. My earliest memories of art are sitting in my father’s studio and watching him mix paint. I was completely mesmerized by the rhythm of the pounding and turning of the squishy substance and watching it magically transform from one colour to another. I am still excited by this transformation.

What are you working on now?

Currently I am renovating my kitchen and bathroom and I am so surprised at how creative a process it is. It’s like creating a giant artwork that you can live and cook and bathe in. It conforms to all the processes of art making and feels enormously satisfying to me.

I am looking forward to getting back into the studio though, and starting some new work.