All posts tagged: contemporary art

The Droplets Series / A collection of new artwork available now!

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I am so proud to be showing you the start of a new body of artwork that I have been working on, an ongoing series of paintings called Droplets. This work is incredibly meaningful to me and symbolises some really important changes moving on in 2020.  This type of artwork has been something I often toyed with in my mind, but never executed onto canvas. I was recently called to produce this work and the effects personally were somewhat cathartic. The paintings within the Droplets series balances on the ridge between parallels. The surrealist scenes of wildlife and nature blend between areas of calm, and intermittent chaos. Using traditional application of oil paints, with no digital intervention, this artwork toes the line between contemporary and traditional art. My subjects amplify the natural world as you have never seen it, bringing together the bountiful nature of life on Earth, and the fine line between abundance and pain. There is a bitter sweetness to these paintings, an acidity to the delicate paintwork. With these subjects steeped in …

Original Painting Auction to Raise Funds for WIRES

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I have a piece named ‘SOS’ up for auction on eBayin aid of WIRES (NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service) which is currently in crisis due to the bushfires raging through Australia. WIRES actively rehbailitate and preserve Australian wildlife, and will be inundated and working tirelessly at this time. 23 people have lost their lives, 12 million acres of land has been devastated, large scale evacuations are taking place, and half a billion wildlife has perished. They fear that the worst is still to come. In many rural areas, volunteers are working with little resources, risking their lives and health to keep the fires at bay and keep people safe. Teams are working to help slow moving wildlife and get them to safety, treating burns and wounds and caring for them when they have nowhere to escape. The original painting is based on a well loved piece named Glory which celebrates the bountiful abundance of out beautiful natural world. The gold leaf droplets symbolise the nourishment that nature gifts us. This abstract and surrealist piece …

My Decade in Review!

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I took this time to reflect on the past 10 years, and I started writing about it privately, and thought what the hell, share it with the world! So here are the last 10 year in almost Tolkein-esque like detail (minus the elves) Enjoy! 2010 I was 21. This was the year I graduated with a BA Honours in Fine Art. A course that has incredibly little to do with what I do now, but probably valuable in terms of the theoretical side of art, which I excelled at for the essays. Ironically, studio time and physically creating the art was not my forte on this course. I completed the final half of my final year at University, a 10 000 word dissertation on how the studio environment affects the outcome of the art. I also struggled with crippling anxiety, panic attacks almost on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, and the impending dread of post-university life. Once graduated I got a job back in my hometown, and would get the train on weekends to visit …

The Entanglement Collection – Katy Jade Dobson

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The Entanglement Collection I am so incredibly proud and excited to show you my new collection in full. Named after my love for quantum physics and the beautiful phenomenon of entangled particles reacting as one even at great distances, the notion that inspired my collection after noticing the patterns of evolution that a body of work takes. As I work on one idea, I find that I bring these marks and textures onto another. The collection laces together and binds. In my excitement to experience this again I took enthusiastically to a new collection. After studying the science of pigments in great detail, and really learning about the history and culture of colour usage I was compelled to start a collection of work that began from a love of colour and blossomed out into dreamlike abstract works. I worked from gut instinct and hoped to dispel my pre-planning ways in order to let the compositions form themselves as my hands intuitively glide. I wanted to create a new experience for myself in creating this artwork …

Hunt Slonem – Art to make you happy

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The art of Hunt Slonem makes me happy. Hunt Slonem is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is very much loved and celebrated for his distinct animal paintings, most famed for his bunny paintings in particular. I personally love his bird paintings. He finds inspiration from his many rescued exotic birds, over 60 which live in a beautiful large avery. With such a strong spiritual connection to his subjects, his paintings depict the auras of the animals he admires so much. As a child growing up in Hawaii his passion for exotic birds in particular deepened then during his time in Central America. Slonem has travelled the globe with much sensitivity to other cultures and the natural world around him. So much so, his paintings express an ongoing scene of constant stimulation from a world he so clearly admires for its beauty and energy. What strikes me the most about Slonem’s paintings is that they’re so beautifully unpretentious, naive at face value, but so intricately and diligently executed at a further glance. At first sight, the textures …

Lets stay connected

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Lets stay connected. You and I have been connected for a little while. You actually see into every corner of my soul, if you do in fact look at my artwork. Scary. Sharing my sacred art space has been something I have felt more strongly towards for a long time now! From starting communities on FaceBook to trying to share more information on the how behind my artwork, for anyone interested in the creating side of my art. Whilst also adding additional information for the people who just enjoy the viewing or the more theoretical side. I know from my own experience that when I had made the decision to make my art more of a prominent feature in my life, the social media profiles of other artists were my biggest source of inspiration and drive. I waited for their next post, and I hoped for more information of the how. Be it how they created, how they marketed, anything! Because of the ever changing social media landscape and the difficulty staying connected to the …

Lately…

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It has been such a long time since I last wrote a blog post (1 year in fact) and I thought I would revive and refresh with a few teaser close ups of my newest collection that I’ve been working so hard on. But first allow me to explain my absence from writing (one of my favourite forms of expression alongside painting) and what I have coming up that warrants a blog post or two! The last blog post I wrote, I typed with a sleeping baby strapped to me in a baby sling, who had been walked around the kitchen table over and over whilst I sang Bohemian Rhapsody (not sure why, but this method seemed to work occasionally) until he fell asleep and freed up my hands somewhat. I could have cooked, but this was too loud or messy. I could have painted but the arm movements seemed to disturb him. So typing it was! Fast forward a year and the tiny sleeping baby is a walking, babbling, giggling, dancing and relentlessly curious …

New Release – Sea Life and Majestic Mammals

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I am so excited to be donating a percentage of profits from my new sea life themed release to the Marine Conservation Society. They work hard to protect our living seas and the wildlife in them by keeping shores clean of litter, tackling overfishing of important species and offering marine life animal adoption schemes. Keeping our oceans clean and healthy for the environment and its inhabitants is invaluable work. I love what they do to proudly protect our sea life and I am thrilled to be working with them. These 2 original paintings are particular favourites of mine, for reasons in that portraying sea life is a different challenge altogether. I had never painted turtles before working on these sea turtles which shows them swimming amongst a midst of intricate colours and textures. I had watched videos of these serene creatures on YouTube before deciding the way in which I wanted to depict them. When working on forming a mammal painting there is a logic to consider when building the subject. The light source will highlight features and …

Laura Jones / Still Life Artist / Inspiration

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An artist I have admired for around 6 months via the stalking platform of Instagram, is Australian painter Laura Jones. I stumbled upon her Instagram page (@_laura_jones_ ) and immediately followed. With a meaty backlog of exhibitions, shows, awards and residencies her accomplishments have been as full as her engaging artwork. Although I love her whole back catalog of work including a portrait series titled ‘I woke up like this’ my favourite is her recent ‘Wildflower’ work which emphasises an expression of Australian identity. I find her work so warm and peaceful. The colour patterns are incredibly earthy while retaining the brightness of the flowers and vases. They are full and bold in application but soft by nature. I identify most to the tactful naivety of the brush strokes as well as the simplicity of the visuals. I very much hope to own one of these originals! This is the kind of artwork that I feel doesn’t need discussing at great length, it should be looked at and examine how you feel when you see it above dissecting …

Virtue – A painting ensouled

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It has so  far been rare that I connect to a painting that I produced quite as much as I did with Virtue: a light and ethereal take on a flock of doves. I enjoy working on every painting, some I would keep for myself and some I couldn’t wait to show the world and allow someone else to connect. Hoping for others to connect with your artwork is a pointless effort, it can only really be seen as you would like, if you paint with the intentions of making yourself feel a certain way. Only then, maybe someone else can channel into its meaning or create their own. I love this about art. Production based from feelings gives a timeless result to the artist. ‘Virtue’ came together incredibly fast for a painting of its vast size but tricky and slight proportions. It is often the case that when working so close to a large scale painting, you can become lost in the finer details, only to be surprised by what you produced when stepping away. It can …