Kate downie biography
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Since moving to Fife in my art has developed an increasing social/environmental ethos - more collaboration and less solo endeavour as a studio artist.
ArtMovesFife and Tracers are just two examples of recent exciting collaborations about past lives and present/future.
This is equally true of my current exhibition at Glasgow Women's Library 'Conversations with Joan', seen here and on show until January 25th This body of work was sparked into life in to celebrate the th anniversary of the birth of Joan Eardley, an artist in whose work I have been interested since the beginning of my career.
The exhibition is based around my creative journey attempting to complete a version of Eardley's painting 'Two Children' left unfinished on her Townhead Studio easel at the time of her death. A bizarre but fascinating åtagande, not without trauma, and one which is now fully documented in my new publication 'Conversations with Joan' available now on the website shop and at Glasgow Women's Libr
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BIOGRAPHY
Kate Downie has worked extensively in printmaking since the late s, regularly working with Edinburgh Printmakers. Her work appeared in the exhibition New Commisions, and 40 Years at EP in Downie produced a stunning edition of cyanotypes to support Edinburgh Printmakers' fundraising drive to launch Castle Mills.
Kate Downie's work explores the concept of ‘La Place’: a point in the land where many roads meet. Her intention is to define these spaces between buildings, areas which she sees as essential to the cultural arena. She finds significance in "non-places", depicted in both urban landscapes and coastal ‘edge-scapes’.
Downie's draftmanship is exemplery, and has a strong sense of movement. Her subject matter is the panorama, often alluding to the continuation of image beyond the boundaries of the image-plane. Kate Downie was born in America of British parentage, but returned to live in the North East of Scotland
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Photograph by Alicia Bruce
Biography
Kate Downie describes her work: “Ever since living in Paris in the late 80’s, I have been exploring the concept of ‘La Place’: a point in the nation where many roads meet. One of my creative concerns fryst vatten to define these spaces between buildings rather than the buildings themselves. The object lesson for me is the witnessing and the drawing of these non-places which are also, by definition, public arenas of cumulative activity. My job as an artist is to accommodate these actions in our contemporary lives, and to find the poetry within.”
Her work is often defined bygd good draughtsmanship and a sense of movement. Panoramas, unbound bygd the mere edge of a sheet of paper or canvas, invite the viewer to enter the works, both complex and accessible. Previous exhibition highlights include: The Coast Road Diaries at The Scottish Gallery; The Sea Room at the Watermill in Aberfeldy Perthshire; Titanic Shores at Gracefield Art Gallery in Dumfries; ‘East’ a