Katie looks at the world intensely, noticing everything, making connections, finding narratives. Her work records the process of looking, crossing through time and space, drawing on memory and history.
“I like to bring things alive through my creative practice, animating objects and spaces. My eyes reach out like an octopus’s tentacles, my hands and body follow, with gesture and movement, leaving traces of this experience of looking as marks on the page. Observation, sound and touch help me feel present, anchoring me in a place from where I can dream.”
In much of her work she tells stories, drawing out the spirit of a person, place or thing. Boundaries of time and space dissolve - a curtain blows in the open window, a door ajar, trees and clouds float into the room, objects appear to have been just put down by an absent hand. There is a sense that something is about to happen.
In other work she is marking time through ritual and routine, working in series about everyday things and activities, connecting her daily practice of meditation to the creative process.
“Katie always leaves just enough room for the viewer to enter into the room. We become part of the space ourselves, rather than just looking in… I can stand in your theatre, and decide if the people have just left or are about to return.”
Katie’s work has been selected for the Discerning Eye, Lynne Painter Stainers Prize, Royal Academy Summer show, Jerwood Drawing Prize. In 2020 she was awarded 1st prize in the Derwent Drawing Prize for The Blue Bedroom, selected for Wells Contemporary and Broadway Arts Exhibition, and Glyndebourne Festival Exhibition.
