Kate Beatty

Kate has worked with the subject matter of NZ birds and flora since her studies back at the School of Fine Arts. She graduated in 2014 with a major in painting.

Kate has explored this subject matter and it has evolved to this 2019-2020 collection. Kate describes her works as painted portraits of NZ birds within a wallpaper-esque background. These portraits are a depicted interpretation of the individual birds’ personality and characteristics.

Colour harmony and colour saturation is a great interest of Kates and she uses this in the way to exaggerate certain physical characteristics of the birds. She also plays with the colour harmony between the depicted bird and wallpaper-esque backdrop which unifies the work and creates an inviting aesthetic.

The flora patterning effect is layered in a way that Kate pushes some of the pattern into the background by painting over the image; some is painted into the mid-ground and then painted in more detail bringing it into the fore-ground. This gives a visual push pull effect which creates a complimentary yet uncanny environment in which the NZ bird/birds are posed.