I’m very excited to be heading to Worcester University to speak on my work generated by residencies in Shetland; in particular a strong dream I had where I saw myself before I was born – which has lead to around 500 watercolours being made. I’m now returning to my first love, oil paint, to articulate and negotiate thoughts and feelings around fluids – sap, blood, milk: milk being the bodily expression of motherly love.
I have great pleasure in inviting you to my forthcoming exhibition at Tremenheere Gallery, which I am sharing with friends.
This body of work has been made in response to time spent in the beautiful gardens at Tremenheere, making drawings and writing about the insights I received from regarding the wild life of the garden.
I will be presenting sequences of watercolours, paintings, writing and monotypes. I’ve decided to also show selected archive works of mine which presage the themes I’ve been exploring recently in depth.
Some months ago I decided to invite friends – artists and poets – whose work responds to related themes to join me in the gallery, hoping this will enrich and broaden the conversations which I trust will be established.
The Opening evening is Friday 6th September, 6 – 8 pm.
I will give an artist’s walk and talk on Sunday September 8th at noon.
There will be workshops on September 8th and 29th (please book through the gallery).
On Friday September 13th Mat Osmond will lead an evening dedicated to Extinction Rebellion (7-9 pm). All are welcome; some of us will be gathering in the cafe from 6 pm.
I’m very excited about this new work, and I’m especially thrilled to be showing in this very fine and special gallery.
Here are two of my works from my recent exhibition at Arusha Gallery in Edinburgh – my first there in five years.
I was very pleased with how the exhibition looked; there was a great crowd at the opening on February 28th; and many people bought copies of my new book, Shetland Notebooks & Sketchbooks, published by Guillemot Press.
The next book launch will be at Tremenheere Gallery just outside Penzance, on April 13th, at 3 pm, when my publisher Luke Thompson and I will talk about the book, and then at 3.30 we will lead a workshop on walking and writing (£15 per person). This event is part of the next Newlyn Society of Artists exhibition, entitled Ex Libris, which has it’s Opening Event on April 6th at 2pm (until 6pm).
this is one of the works in the exhibition in New York…
And in York, U.K., at the New Schoolhouse Gallery, from now until the end of January:
NOW SHOWING: KATE WALTERS THE START THAT FALLS FROM HEAVEN
Penzance-based artist Kate Walters’ The Start that Falls from Heaven is an extraordinary, deeply moving exhibition of works in oil and watercolour that were predominantly completed on the isles of Shetland and Iona. The exhibition overflows with motifs of the feminine, the mythical and the natural world and asks: What does it mean to be human, knowing, and living in the anthropocene age?
Here are some images:
Ghost Tide:
I was very happy to be part of Ghost Tide, an exhibition curated by Monika Bobinska and Sarah Sparkes, at Thames Side Studios in London recently. I spent an afternoon offering ‘hollow bone’ sessions (funded by Arts Council England); the pictures show me doing this work with visitors to the exhbition. This work was done in a ceremonial way, with drumming, trance, and song.
The Ghost TideCurated by Monika Bobinska and Sarah Sparkes at Thames-Side StudiosSupported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.The Ghost Tide – coinciding with the festivals of Hallowe’en, All Souls and the Day of the Dead – takes as its starting point the perspective that ghosts exist as an idea, or as part of belief system, across cultures, across national borders and throughout recorded history.Most languages contain words to describe the ghost, spirit or immaterial part of a deceased person. Often, these words – like the type of ghost they describe – have traversed borders been assimilated across cultures.
The exhibition, situated next to the Thames Barrier in south-east London, evokes ghosts as a migratory tide of ghosts washed up along the shore of the Thames, their historical baggage in tow.
It also evokes the presence of artists in this part of London, as a migratory tide of creative flotsam and jetsam which ebbs and flows as the city gentrifies and develops.
Featured works include sculpture, installation, film, sound, performance and wall based works.
The exhibition will include installations and outdoor interventions, as well as public events and Sarah Sparkes’ GHost Research Library ghost library.
About the curatorsSarah Sparkes is an artist and curator. Her work, The GHost Formula, 2016, commissioned by FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) recently toured to NTMoFA (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts) as part of the exhibition No Such Thing As Gravity, curated by Rob LaFrenais.She was the 2015 recipient of the MERU ART*SCIENCE Award. Together with Ian Thompson, she was awarded a BEYOND artist residency at Allenheads Contemporary Arts, 2018. Her work is shown by New Art Projects London.Sparkes leads the visual arts and creative research project GHost, curating an on-going programme of exhibitions, performances and inter-disciplinary seminars interrogating the idea of the ghost.
GHost events have been supported by Folkestone Triennale, University of the Arts, University of London, FACT, NTMoFA and Arts Council of England. She has lectured and written widely on both ghosts and GHost.
Monika Bobinska is the director of CANAL, which organizes exhibitions and art projects in a variety of settings, and runs the North Devon Artist Residency www.northdevonartres.org
Artists include Andrea G Artz, Chris Boyd, Davies Monaghan & Klein, Diane Eagles,Gen Doy, Sarah Doyle, Graham Dunning, Andrew Ekins, Charlie Fox, Katie Goodwin, Kio Griffith, Miyuki Kasahara, Calum F Kerr, Rob La Frenais, Liane Lang, David Leapman, Toby MacLennan, Laura Marker, Joanna McCormick, Josie McCoy, Jane Millar, Output Arts, Miroslav Pomichal, Quay Brothers, Anne Robinson, Edwin Rostron, Matt Rowe, Sarah Sparkes, Charlotte Squire, Sara Trillo, Kate Walters, Patrick White, Heidi Wigmore, Mary Yacoob, Yun Ting Tsai, Neda Zarfsaz.PV: Fri 19 October 6-8.30pm with performance by Gen Doy
CURATORS’ TALK: Sat 20 October 3-4pm
HOLLOW BONE ceremony with Kate Walters: Sat 27 October 3-6pm
DAY OF THE DEAD CLOSING PARTY: Sat 3 November 2-7.30pm
Papel Picado workshop 2-5pm
Make your own Day of the Dead cutouts with artist Sarah Doyle. Suitable for all ages, materials provided
Performances & artist led walk 2-5pm
Charlie Fox, Calum F Kerr, Joanna McCormick, in and around the gallery
Day of the Dead Feast 5-6pm
Refreshments will be served
International Film Screening 6pm
Haunting short films in the gallery by Chris Boyd, Liane Lang, Quay Brothers, Yun Ting Tsai, Neda ZarfsazThames-Side StudiosThames-Side Studios Gallery
Harrington Way, Warspite Road
London SE18 5NR
Open Thur-Sun 12-5pm and by appointment
The Iona workshop, the Way of Beauty, will be held at Iona hostel, an award winning hostel with bunk bed accommodation in rooms of 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 beds.
It is a very beautiful holy Island with a great deal of history and natural beauty. It is a ‘thin’ place where your dreams and vision are likely to be enhanced.
The price is £550 per participant, which will include teaching/workshop work from 10 am – 3/4pm daily, with a short break for resting/individual work in the late afternoon or after lunch, then evening work after dinner from around 7.30 – 9.30pm. We can arrive anytime after 2 pm on Monday October 7th (gathering for tea and introductions at 4pm), and stay there until the morning of Friday 11th October (leaving by 11am).
The workshop will focus on beauty and will include drawing, writing, painting, walking, dreaming, shamanic journeying (for those who would like it) with drumming and guidance, night/evening walks, elemental work, laughter, and time for solitude. The Island is not large or hilly so the walking is not too demanding or ever very far (although it is around 1 km+ from the jetty to the hostel on a single track level road).
This time we will bring our own food or buy from the Island shop, and either cook for ourselves or share meals/food preparation – keeping it simple.
Staples such as rice and pasta are often left by previous travellers, but we can’t rely on that….
Travel to Iona is quite easy. Train or coach to Glasgow then train to Oban, ferry to Mull, bus to Fionnphort, then ferry to Iona, then walk….
By car you drive to Fionnphort (by ferry from Oban first) then park in the free car park which is 5 mins walk away from the ferry to Iona.
Combining this workshop with a little tour of Mull or Skye would make a very good trip…both islands have very varied landscapes and are very beautiful.
If you would like to book a place on this workshop please email me your confirmation, and I’ll give you payment details – k.walters@outlook.com
Deposits will be refundable up to 6 months before the workshop, i.e. the end of March 2019. After that it might be hard for me to fill places as most people like to plan well ahead.
Also please give me your permission to share your email addresses and mobile numbers with other people who have registered for the course.
There are 4 places left on this workshop…friends are welcome to come together!
For the British artist Kate Walters painting is a shamanic experience that emerges from deep from the collective feminine unconscious. Like a shaman, she plumbs the depths of the psyche to tap into the source of the most archaic human imagery so as to render it anew for the contemporary world. If Walters lists the artists Joseph Beuys and Bracha Ettinger, alongside the Jungian psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz as her influences, it is because her paintings continue in their steps and add to their legacy.
Walters is particularly interested in the recovery of the sacred feminine principle. She believes that the masculine warrior culture has coopted femininity, disrupting natural balance. Her delicate yet powerful watercolors work to restore this balance. To this end, paintings like Mother on Tree with Bird and Deep Space with Infant refer to organic shapes, the female body in its connection to nature, fertility, cyclical time, and life and death processes. In the words of Dr. Richard Davey, Walters’ paintings are “vehicles through which we are pulled into formlessness,” “encounters with the ephemeral,” and depicting the body as “free of physical constraints, floating in interconnected communion with the universe.”