KATHRYN STEVENS
KATHRYN STEVENS
ABOUT
"What concerns me when I work, is not whether the picture is a landscape, or whether it's pastoral, or whether somebody will see a sunset in it. What concerns me is - did I make a beautiful picture?"
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler
The materiality of paint is something I have been exploring in my work; how paint works, the movement of paint, and the physicality of paint on the canvas.
There is a play between the controlled and uncontrolled method of painting, by negotiating the surface and taking a chance in the present. The way the paint sits on the canvas, has an undistinguishable, unique and subtle quality to how the marks and colours were created.
My processes form a big part of my practise and question the history of how the paintings are created. The canvas is never stationary; they are moved around, turned upside down, from the wall to on the floor, highlighting the physical and performative nature of the act of painting that is critical to my practise. There is a conflict between light and colour in my paintings, which conveys a fresh energy.
These paintings are constructions based on impulsive and improvised processes of colour, form and application of paint, working with the language of abstraction. These paintings may also refer to having landscape influences by horizon lines that appear within the paintings, therefore also relating to notions of landscape painting.
This also furthers a tension these paintings have. The tension between abstraction and representation, tension between light and dark, the controlled and uncontrolled method of painting, the relationship between the spills and the brush marks, matt and varnish qualities, the painted surface and the unfinished edge, the depth of illusion and the surface of the painting, allowing the tradition of painting to be questioned in new ways.
Kathryn was born and brought up near St Ives, Cornwall and currently lives and works in Bristol. She gained a BA Honours Degree in Fine Art from Bath School of Art and Design, Bath Spa University in 2013.
There is a play between the controlled and uncontrolled method of painting, by negotiating the surface and taking a chance in the present. The way the paint sits on the canvas, has an undistinguishable, unique and subtle quality to how the marks and colours were created.
My processes form a big part of my practise and question the history of how the paintings are created. The canvas is never stationary; they are moved around, turned upside down, from the wall to on the floor, highlighting the physical and performative nature of the act of painting that is critical to my practise. There is a conflict between light and colour in my paintings, which conveys a fresh energy.
These paintings are constructions based on impulsive and improvised processes of colour, form and application of paint, working with the language of abstraction. These paintings may also refer to having landscape influences by horizon lines that appear within the paintings, therefore also relating to notions of landscape painting.
This also furthers a tension these paintings have. The tension between abstraction and representation, tension between light and dark, the controlled and uncontrolled method of painting, the relationship between the spills and the brush marks, matt and varnish qualities, the painted surface and the unfinished edge, the depth of illusion and the surface of the painting, allowing the tradition of painting to be questioned in new ways.
Kathryn was born and brought up near St Ives, Cornwall and currently lives and works in Bristol. She gained a BA Honours Degree in Fine Art from Bath School of Art and Design, Bath Spa University in 2013.
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