Photograph by kind permission of Hana Moazzeni, taken at the opening of my solo show, LOVE Paintings, at Arusha Gallery in June 2022.
Photographs by Andrew McDouall
Current Studio work:2024
I’ve just sent around 50 paintings to Arusha Gallery in London for my solo exhibition ‘I saw the waking field’ which runs from May 2-25th 2024, with an open evening on May 9th, when I’ll be present in the gallery. In November and December of this year I had the wonderful opportunity to work in Anchor Studios, enabling me to make larger paintings and to see works in sequence. I revelled in the space, filling it with ambitious scale and I was able to allow the strong current and flow of my work to really surge.
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In 2023 and 2024 I’ll be planning a new book inspired by Venetian icons; this will include time spent in residence in Venice studying early Greek icons.
In February and March 2023 I had a successful solo show at Studio Kind in Devon (funded by Arts Council England). The show explored themes of individuation, trauma, dreaming and painting as coming-to-knowing; female desire, Persephone (Kore), creatureliness, certain myths for example Eros and Psyche; and writing as a way of understanding painting and drawing.
There is a specially commissioned academic essay by Joseph Suart.
Excerpt: “The Greek word, ‘Kore’, derives from a root meaning ‘vital force’ and ‘refers to the principle that makes plants and animals grow’ (Agamben & Ferrando 2010 p 6). The Kore is any untethered girl or woman whose sexuality may be yet budding or budding again and again. It is used to refer as much to any unmarried woman who may be sexually active as to one who has not yet awoken to her sexual life. It is also used in reference to those who are old, ‘children with white hair’ such as the Erinyes.
We have here the story, and the images, of a form of human life that ‘does not allow itself to be “spoken” in so much as it cannot be defined by age, family, sexual identity of social role.’ (p7) The story was communicated in language only in so much as it is heard as a poem sung from the poetic realm.
The poetic realm is imaginal and it speaks directly from the body to the body. ”
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In June and July 2022 Kate had a very successful and well-received solo exhibition, Love Paintings, at Arusha Gallery in Edinburgh. Supporting essays were written by Amy Hale and Joseph Suart.
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Walters studied fine art at Brighton University. In February 2019 she had a second solo show and book launch (Shetland Notebooks) at Arusha Gallery in Edinburgh. Another exhibition, of new paintings in oil, will be held at Arusha in a year or so. Kate is currently working in oil paint, and is enjoying spending a year exploring this medium again.She was grateful to be awarded Emergency funding from the Arts Council at the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown.
Kate was the recipient of two major awards (2004 & 2007) from the Arts Council England South West for the development of her work. She was also awarded travel bursaries to the Venice Biennale, and research trips to London and Berlin. In April 2016 she was awarded a Travel Bursary from a-n Artists Information Co. to enable her to research opportunities in the Outer Hebrides and Orkney. In 2012 she received funding from The Juliet Gomperts Trust for the development and production of work for her solo show at Newlyn Art Gallery, ‘The Secret Worth a Thousand’. In May 2013 Kate was selected to attend the Venice Biennale Launch weekend with funding from a-n’s ‘Go and See’ initiative. Kate was awarded funding by VASW to attend the ‘engage’ summer school in Padua, September 2013.
She has had works short-listed for the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2003 and 2008; selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2006, the Discerning Eye exhibition at the Mall galleries in London in 2002/6/11/14/15, Artsway Open 09/05, curated by Peter Bonnell, Sway, Hampshire; Visual Exhibition for Art of Ideas II curated by Stephen Snoddy in Birmingham(2009),the Royal West of England Academy, the Exchange Drawing show, and her solo show at Newlyn Art Gallery. This show was well reviewed in The Guardian and the Spectator. Links are below.
Kate has also initiated, organised and curated artists’ group shows; the first was held at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery (University of Greenwich) in March 2013 and in October 2013 a larger group showed in The Art Pavilion in Tower Hamlets for 2 weeks. The third, and very successful fund-raising show, was for the charity Freedom from Torture, held at Millennium, by kind permission of Joseph Clarke, in Cornwall in November 2013. Around £11,000 was raised. Kate has organised and curated a show exploring the hidden feminine, called Drawing down the Feminine. This group consists of 15 artists, at varying stages in their careers; their first exhibition was at Newlyn Art Gallery in March 2016; a second exhibition was held at The Plough Arts Centre in Torrington, north Devon, during May 2016. The show toured to Bridport Arts Centre in January 2018.
In February 2014 Kate went to Innsbruck University to give two talks on Animals in Art, with a focus on her own work. This was followed by talks/presentations at the Universities of Aberdeen and Falmouth; where she spoke on Fallen Animals and about the hollow bone process which she uses to make drawings about/with people, places and situations. This ancient process used by indigenous peoples in healing ceremonies involves the protagonist requesting their ego step aside, in order for numinous awareness to become awakened. The brain waves change to theta, usually with the help of a drum. Kate has worked this way at Jam on the Marsh music festival, at the Venice Biennale in May 2015; at Glasgow School of Art with staff and students; and with numerous individuals wishing to have a bespoke drawing made, and perhaps insights to certain situations. Kate works with a drum and monotype drawings when working shamanically with the hollow bone.
In the Autumn of 2014 Kate worked with Marc Almond to create all the original drawings for his album The Velvet Trail.
Kate employed her process ‘becoming the hollow bone’ which Professor Penny Florence witnessed at Espacio Gallery in January 2015 and describes below:
On ‘becoming the hollow bone’….
“Kate Walters’ fascinating new departure, which she brilliantly calls “becoming the hollow bone”, takes audience participation to a new level. Showcased in the summer in Hoxton, and most recently at the Espacio in London, participants are brought into the making of the work. The artist sits with her subject in the gallery (or indeed, anywhere) and “channels” them to create a unique monotype, which the person can take away with them. This is much deeper than setting work up to which people can respond in various ways. Yet – and this is the real master stroke – though the “audience” is brought right into the making of the work, the artist remains in the key rôle. This is no dilution of the artist, but rather a true sharing of her talent. Gallery, visitor, artist, artwork: they are all changed. I felt privileged and moved to witness it.”
Professor Penny Florence
March 2015
Kate teaches at Newlyn School of Art on her own course exploring walking in wilderness with monotype, as well as on Mentoring and Studio Practice courses. She also teaches occasional workshops on Iona, Dartmoor, Exmoor, and in her studio overlooking Newlyn harbour. Please contact her if you are interested in attending workshops or working with her hollow bone technique.
Recent residencies on the Isle of Iona gave Kate the opportunity to create a large body of work about her response to the purity and beauty she experienced there. Kate’s first book was The Iona Notebooks published by Guillemot Press in May 2017. For more details please see https://ionaartresidencies.wordpress.com or the blog below….
During Summer 2017 Kate was in residence on Shetland for a month. Being on Shetland affected her very powerfully. Her second book, Shetland Notebooks, was published by Guillemot Press in March 2019. During 2017, 2018 and 2019 Kate was artist in residence at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, working towards her exhibition at Tremenheere Galleries in September 2019.
Photography of watercolours in this sequence by Andrew McDouall.
In July 2018 she worked at Jam on the Marsh in Kent, presenting works made in response to music, live concerts and in collaboration with poet Grahame Davies.
For up to date work and career news please click here to see Kate Walters blog