kathryn pender artwork....
Well.....where to begin.... I am a painter, currently living and working in Glasgow. I graduated with a BA(Hons)Fine Art Painting from Grays School of Art, Aberdeen, in 2002. Since then I have been painting and exhibiting, in Glasgow and further afield, and involving myself in various artists' groups, festivals, galleries, and also in setting up exhibitions outside the gallery context. Although painting is my main practice, I have exhibited installation/ sculptural pieces, and ventured into graphic design. I feel art should move across all disciplines, and would never discard a project if it didn't fit into the traditional criteria for painting!
Underpinning all my work are two main focuses- themes and materials. I am constantly experimenting, layering materials and finding out how they interact with each other, and controlling chaos amongst paints, waxes, varnishes, resins, photographs and found objects. This experimenting creates the vibrancy and the movement in paintings which is so essential to me, the kind of harmonious layering and creating to which I strongly identify within music.
Through all the stages of my work so far, through varying themes, the ones that keep returning are always directly related to people. This arises from investigating the physical form of the human figure, as in earlier work such as 'ben dover', (above), or in my nipple casting phase-thanks to all who volunteered!!.Through the layering of materials and objects, I have been aiming to abstract the human figure, not in a purely classical sense but to throw in ideas, about image, self-perception, private self versus outside persona, the materials working like ideas in a discussion, rather than being the firm answers of conclusions.
The other theme of people I cannot escape is that of people in a wider perspective, people moving in crowds, in the urban environment, scenes quitted by people where traces have been left; footprints, litter, casual graffiti, all the inconsequential little traces usually overlooked, which to me build up the canvas of the everyday environment. Little interactions, interventions, small events rather than big ones or large gestures and events, for me they make up the importance of the everyday.
Well, I'll try and let the pictures speak for themselves, you can find more on the exhibitions and projects pages of the site, and as I update the sketchbook and current work pages regulary.
For exhibitions, commissions, education etc, click here for my c.v.....