Exhibition Events:

‘Dialogue with the Land’ is finally up and running in the beautifully refurbished Burgh Halls in Linlithgow.

Combining some landscape works from 2009 with a new set of Linlithgow watercolours, it sits very happily in a 17th century space which is as much window as wall, looking out to the land, the town and the Palace.

A great place for a day out, by train (20 minutes from Edinburgh 29 minutes from Glasgow) or bike along the canal path…

Winter Pinks and the Giant Beech

‘Mono-print’ at Glasgow Print Studio Gallery is a survey of the contemporary practice of the unique print form, curated by John MacKechnie, opening on May 20th.  Some of my new Beijing inspired prints will be seen alongside new work by John Byrne, Eileen Cooper, Bruce Maclean, Barbara Rae & Adrian Wiszniewski, amongst others.

After years of exploring and experimenting in this media as a key part of my own practice, I am very excited by the new developments of mono-etching and chine collé within the print. Come and see my largest print ever, made on the beautiful Takach press at the Glasgow Print Studio.

Evening, Beijing (with artist’s feet for scale)

‘Bridging the Gap’. As one of the invited artists in the Pittenweem Arts Festival 2011, I have been creating a new series of colour-field abstract prints with Alastair Clark at Edinburgh Print Workshop, which will become a key part of my civil engineering installation destined for the old Town Hall in Pittenweem from August 5th to 14th.

The installation will feature a collection of large charcoal drawings made over the past ten years across this country, many never before exhibited, as well as a 2011 Forth Rail Bridge work to commemorate 25 years of drawing the Bridge.

Bridging the Gap Studio Work in progress, photo by Michael Wolchover

‘Landfall’ will be a collection of small spiritual paintings at The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh from the 5th-29th October. Landfall’s literal meaning is ‘the first sighting of the land after voyage by sea or air’. I seek to capture that sense of a ‘first sighting’ wonder of the land in this new body of works. There will be some quiet journeying with paint over the next few months to complete this new body of work on canvas.

Landscape in the Studio, photo by Fereuse Macdonald

Drawing Attention is the subject title for this year’s Cupar Arts Festival 2011 between 8-18th October. I have been invited to perform a drawing (with projections and live drawing action) as one of the evening events at this terrific Fife festival. The working title is Brief Encounters. Imagine it as part B&W post-war film homage, part melodrama, and a huge quantity of charcoal.

Finally….

Around the 16th of October I will be flying out to China for ten weeks. Embarking on a 47 hour 28 minute train journey from Beijing to Lhasa in Tibet to make a very long ink painting, followed by journeys around some of China’s incredible landscapes, I will hopefully be meeting with some master ink painters whose work I have long studied and admired. From November 1st I will be part of the Red Gate Gallery’s International Residency Programme in Beijing until the end of the 2011. Exhibitions and projects will follow but that is a story for another year…

The practice of the medium of ink, in painting and drawing is very different between East and West visual cultures, but has influence in both directions for centuries. My own interest in the practice of ink work has developed to the point where direct contact with and influence by both traditional and contemporary practices within the visual cultures of P R China could be a desired development to my own work.

I plan to visit to visit various art institutes in Beijing and make contact with the new generation of contemporary galleries and art communities in Beijing which have blossomed over the past ten years. I look forward to meeting with Chinese artists of my own generation and to visit their studios. I will complete my current trip this month with four days in Shanghai to look at the new architecture, an impossibly brief visit to EXPO 2010, and yet more art & artists!

This scholarly initiative will hopefully be the basis for setting up a more prolonged period of research and practice in an institute of Chinese ink painting in Beijing followed by an artist’s residency post and a chance to travel within the country.

Wish me luck!   Here are some recent examples of my work exploring the medium of ink

Anticipated Outcomes

• The development of my own practice as an artist through dialogue and exposure to complimentary art practices from Chinese Visual Arts Culture
• The critical first stage towards a major publication and an exhibition/installation in the Royal Scottish Academy and a Beijing Contemporary Art Space in 2013/14 possibly featuring my work and that of a Chinese artist, demonstrating a scholarly and creative dialogue between artists from both cultures

Titled ‘The Haymarket Pibroch’, it is a contemporary street lament for the displaced peoples of Edinburgh during the Tramworks of the past few years.  The process of making the drawing was documented and edited into a 6 minute  audio-visual by Michael Wolchover with soundtrack  by Gary West and Wendy Stewart. These and other new drawings can be seen at the Royal Scottish Academy until June 23rd.   for opening times etc see  http://www.royalscottishacademy.org

The whole exhibition has been well reviewed and is worth a visit if you are visiting  Edinburgh soon! gilessutherland.blogspot.com

Sea Cafe I (Akaylar) 2005-10

These two paintings feature in this excellent group show at The Rendezvous Gallery in Aberdeen until June 19th. This Gallery is a wonderfully eccentric (but very cultured) corner of Aberdeen in Scotland , where objet d’art and paintings are  crowded in together but somehow maintain their integrity due to the keen eye and passionate curatorship of gallery owner Duane Meade.

Sea Cafe I started life from a twilight pastel sketch looking across to the Greek island of  Kos from the village of  Akyarlar in Turkey in 2005, reaching  its final incarnation last month. This is joined by my more recent Sea Cafe II based on a beautiful out-of-season trip to Collioures in the South of France last February.

Sea Cafe II

‘ ….. an extraordinarily powerful show, fresh and vital’
Giles Sutherland  The Times ***** 5 star review
October 2009

‘Kate is a wonderful artist. A fine draughtsman (woman…) who is totally and utterly immersed in the power of the surroundings in which she finds herself’
Jan Patience (Blog) Journalist and Art Lover
December 2009

‘Her show records a journey around Scotland and some of the individual images are stunning  …….. she has reached a kind of luminous calm.’
Duncan MacMillan  The Scotsman  **** 4 star review of The Coast Road Diaries
October 2009

The TSA drawing expedition to Muse, a famous Leith Hair Salon

Summer Classes at the Thursday School of Art are coming to a close, with the final ink& wax drawing and collograph printing session to finish on June 17th. This year the theme was ‘Being Human’ .

In May we had a fantastic trip to Dancebase in Edinburgh to draw the Curious Seed Dancer-in-Residence Christine Devaney whilst she ran a masterclass of professional young dancers.The results can be seen if you click HERE

2010/2011 TSA workshops  will feature a series of 2-3 day monoprinting masterclasses , exact dates to be arranged.

Contact Kate Downie for further information, cost and bookings

Two years of meetings, ideas, writing and researching to reach this stage; I am, at last, delighted to welcome you to join this world of paint, ink, paper and canvas made virtual. I hope you enjoy it.
Feedback most welcome.

Kind Request

Over the past 29 years of my working life my art has been exhibited and sold to individuals and collections the world over. Whilst researching the provenance of the pictures in this site, I realised there were huge gaps in the records of ownership. If anyone out there owns my work, it would be incredibly useful if those of you who do own works could email me with information about which actual work(s) they own: title, medium, size, from which exhibition/venue, edition number, if any. Emailing me an image of the work ‘in situ’ would be very useful. All this would be added to my updated information base. It would also enable me to update my mailing list and enable you to be informed of and to receive invitations to future art events.
Thank you !

Kate Downie December 2009