Katie Gallery

My largest influence has been the tribe of artisans and makers who raised me up. I find Australian Aboriginal painters deeply moving because of my roots. Their commitment to the present moment, the idea of painting as a community story, is an important part of the process. I love the idea of the nothing that is the outback, and how painters there have created an industry for themselves out of the stories of their lives and history. My favorite, Dorothy Napangardi and the other Napangardi sisters, have a painted language that echoes through time.


All of my watercolor paintings are mixed from pigment by hand, creating unique, one-of-a-kind hues. Pigments come from all over the world and are light-durable, synthetic, and non toxic whenever possible.


In addition to gum arabic, the age-old watercolor binder, the pieces heavily use funori, a Japanese seaweed. Often used in archival book binding, the funori is used to lift and carry dense pure pigments over the paper with a unique body and flow not often seen in traditional watercolor.

The paper is beautiful 100% cotton Coventry Rag Legion made, like the artist, in the early 1970s, and is uniquely able to take the process. It was created largely for Erte, and had a certain s...