Present Moment: Joy Painting

Kathleen Rhee is an Australian abstract expressionist artist living and working on the Gold Coast. With a passion for working on large-scale abstract paintings her beautifully calming works are inspired by the country’s picturesque natural environment. Kathleen’s pieces bring the outdoors indoors, with her gentle pinks, deep blues and turquoise greens adding a sense of peace to people’s lives. Kathleen has a deep connection to mother nature and can only explain her practice as a need to paint everyday, expressing impressions, feelings and experiences in her daily life. When Kathleen is not painting she is spending time outdoors, at the beach, in the rainforest or looking up at the sky. It’s these colour combinations and sense of calm that inspire her pieces. ​Working solely with acrylics Kathleen combines colour staining, sketching, splattering, layering and painting with a brush to create her works. ​ Kathleen knew when she was a child she wanted to be a painter. It’s the only thing she has ever wanted to do. Kathleen's studies in Australia include art history, drawing and painting at Brisbane Institute of Art and Portrait & Figure Painting at ANU Art School Canberra. She studied at the prestigious Parsons School of Design in New York City where she lived for four years before moving home to Australia where she now resides with her husband and children. Kathleen is a prize finalist, with her work also featured on national teleivison in 2019, 2020 and was accepted to Artist-in-Residence at Château d’Orquevaux, France 2020.