Bowerbirds don’t care for the nuances of human meaning. When mating season comes, the males will search for objects to decorate their bowers, little tunnel-like structures made of sticks, hoping to impress a female. So long as it is blue, they’ll take anything  pen lids, lighters, cash, thread, have all been found in their bowers. The birds don’t know what those things represent for us, what purpose they might have in our lives. They just don’t care. To me, there seems to be a sort of disregard, an indifference of the natural world to the human experience. Instead of being a cause of panic, this ails my anxiety, puts to rest my need for control. It reminds me that that there are forces far greater than we can imagine, far greater than we can apprehend. It requires a kind of surrender, which brings me closer to a peaceful state of being. In the words of Annie Proulx,  “Dangerous and indifferent ground: against its fixed mass the tragedies of people count for nothing, although the signs of misadventure are everywhere.” Broadly speaking, this is what I’m trying to convey in my work.

Painting is a great teacher. A meditation. A practice. My process is at times slow, and others lightning fast. I usually start off with a photo of some recent encounter with a family member, a friend or a dog. I let the image simmer in my mind. Once it’s sat for a while, I’ll do a rough sketch, decide if it has something. If it does, I’ll draw a few more sketches, usually in coloured pencils or oil crayons, trying to establish the mood by the colour. If that also goes well, and if I’m feeling brave, I’ll take it to the larger size board or canvas and see what happens. A lot of the time, this is where I fail. Probably I've rushed a step, I haven’t thought about it enough, or I got too excited. Good paintings take patience, a kind of reserve. Don’t do too much too soon, don’t decide what happens to the painting, let the painting tell you. Let it rest, let it dry, let the layer of energy be preserved somewhere in the canvas. Then, on another day, approach again. Repeat until the canvas stops calling.. That’s how I know a painting is done.

I believe  this lesson comes from my background in life drawing. In most classes I went to, we did, 1-minute, 5- minute or 10- minute drawings. That’s how you learn to be efficient with your lines. Find the gesture in the most direct  way  possible. How much energy can those few lines embody? How can I say complex and layered things as simply as possible? This is what it is all about. Not trying to prove how good I am, how much I can do, how detailed I can make it. Accuracy can hold me back. I prefer to walk the line between representation and abstraction, to feel that tension. That grey area is what best represents my  experience of life. Never really clear- cut, always wandering through the murky middle. I love the power of those first lines, their honesty.

In a more specific sense, what I want to communicate is the monumentality of the everyday. ‘The universe  contained in a grain of sand’, as they say. Ordinary things, like meeting a friend, taking care of my loved ones, looking  at the sky and observing the birds flying above us, to me are the most significant events. The great expanse of existence is a continuity through the ages. What is both precious and abundant, is our presence in this very moment.  

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Kate is a painter based in regional Victoria, Australia. After completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts, she has been named a finalist in numerous awards, including the Adelaide Perry Prize and the Lloyd Rees Youth Art Award. In 2025, she completed a residency at L'appartamento in Naples, Italy, and was listed in Art Edit magazine's 'One's to Watch' feature.