Kate Williamson

ARTIST STATEMENT

“My work strives to depict the hum and dynamic interplay of colours and light, water and sky. Life: the warm sands alive with cockles; the light angling through the trees; the myriad reflections in a deep pool of water. I want the raw image, the organic aesthetic to enliven the canvas and the space it goes on to inhabit.”

Kate Williamson, artist.

“The artist explores this analogy by creating landscape forms which strip away the reality of the scene to replace it with something that gives the impression of moving liquid. This is particularly evident in the earth-fire-and-water composition Pool of colours, where the solidity of the landforms seem to melt into a flow of hue and light. A similar suffusion of solid elements is found in the sun-drenched Orb.
More tangible lands emerge in the high country valley of Origin and mountain meadow of Light Scatter II, but it is perhaps in the deep molten undergrowth and solid branches of Forest Lights that the exhibition reaches a peak.”

James Dignan, arts reviewer.
ODT ArtSeen: June 7, 2018


Kate Williamson was born in Christchurch, and now lives in the nature reserve of Waipori Falls, New Zealand. Renowned for her large and striking works, which are a direct response to ...

Kate has a Bachelor's Degree in Art and Creativity, and a Diploma Advanced from The TLC (alternative) Art school, Wellington New Zealand. Also trained in France, with the guidance of large-scale expert painter Yvan Mauger. The artist was involved in a large-scale performance painting at Le Mans, 24 hour Grand Prix.


Kate is a cancer survivor. At 25, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, and subsequently did six months of chemotherapy. It was during this period that her paintings took on a unique expression. There is immediacy to her work that is still evident many years on.

*Wild Gaia, The Halo Of Life exhibition 8 March 5 April 2025 Moray Gallery New Zealand.

*Waipori Falls Lightcatchers exhibition 8 - 28 July 2023
Moray Gallery Dunedin NZ.

*Overstory.
Moray Gallery Dunedin Exhibition opening 4th Feb 2021.

*Origin exhibition.
Moray Gallery Dunedin exhibition opening date June 2nd 2018.


* Green Fusion, the real world series exhibition. Moray Gallery. Opening 1st of July 2017 12pm.


"Green Fusion: The Real World Series", Kate Williamson (Moray Gallery)

Review Otago Daily Times; by James Dignam

"Kate Williamson's art forms an antithesis to the technocracy of Jackson's oracle. Her acrylic images revel in the natural world, specifically the island of wilderness, which is the bush around Waipori Falls.

Williamson claims that her aim is to paint the ''real'' life endangered and dwindled by the encroachment of the ''make believe'' world of human industrialisation. Ironically, her charming pictures present a world that glows in an almost magical light, seemingly hyperreal in its honeyed tones and sparkling dapples.

In pieces such as The Watcher, the light seems to vibrate. The paint, boldly applied in gestural splashes, brings the forest to vivid life.

Works such as Dawn Chorus, Swallows in the ...