Hi, I’m Kate.  

I am a multidisciplinary artist using acrylic, pastels and watercolour and I help people create deep personal meaningful connections through my portraits. I enjoy creating expressive thought provoking portraits.  My aim is to touch the viewer so that they feel a deep resonance within and connect it to my artwork. I graduated with a BFA in 2004 and have worked as an art therapist and a painting instructor. I have also facilitated expressive painting workshops in recovery houses where people have come from addictions from drugs or alcohol to start a new life and by helping them create deep personal paintings they were able to start their healing journey to move back into society with a fresh outlook on life. I donate 20% of my art proceeds to homeless charities not just to help provide necessities, but it's also an opportunity to restore hope, dignity and a sense of belonging to those who need it most. I have explored a variety of media including charcoal, watercolour, acrylic, water- soluble encaustic throughout my life and enjoy experimenting and discovering spontaneous surprises that happen with every drawing or painting.

I spent my early childhood in Calcutta, India  and was fascinated by statues of Buddha that stood in market squares, street corners and temples and started drawing his faces.  Each statue had a different intense expression radiating calmness and peace that touched me from within. What resonated deeply with me was the deep intense light I felt in his eyes. Owning a Buddha statue of my own was all I could think of and finally the day arrived when I had saved up enough pocket money to purchase one.  With my rupees clutched in my hands, I ran down the packed, cobbled streets and purchased my first Buddha statue.  Finally I had one of my very own!  After Buddha statues I started drawing the faces and expressions of the local people working and living.  I was drawn to the raw emotions so often present in the faces of people as they worked.  Later on growing up in Europe I was attracted by German Expressionism particularly Egon Schiele which expresses the deep inner world of the sitter and where intense emotions are reflected in contorted and exaggerated gestures achieving an emotional effect which is palpable to the viewer.

Inspired by the raw intensity of Egon Schiele, I seek to strip away polish and perfection revealing the vulnerability that lives beneath the surface. Fractured lines and stark gazes become vessels for something deeper — the tension between exposure and protection, softness and survival. I draw more than faces — I draw emotion, memory, and the quiet moments in between. Every line I draw is an attempt to capture something fleeting — a glance, a feeling, the essence of a person in a moment they didn’t even know they were showing. I am drawn to the quiet beauty in people — not just how they look, but who they are beneath the surface. The strength in their eyes, the softness in their expression and the vulnerability they don’t always share with the world. My drawings are primarily in charcoal for its immediacy and imperfection. Every mark is intentional, but not always controlled. I let the medium speak — smudge, tremble, push back — just like the people I draw.

These portraits are not about likeness. They’re about presence.
Not about beauty — but being.
Unfiltered. Uncomfortable. Unapologetically human.

Artist’s Statement

My portraits begin in stillness — in that quiet moment where someone lets their guard down even just for a breath. That’s what I wait for. That’s what I draw. Working with charcoal, I lean into the medium’s unpredictability. I let the lines be loose, raw, imperfect — smudging, erasing, redrawing — until something honest starts to emerge. I’m not chasing realism. I’m searching for the essence of the person.

Egon Schiele’s work opened a door for me — a reminder that distortion can be more truthful than accuracy. Like him, I’m drawn to elongated forms, angular lines, and the emotional weight in a face. His influence taught me that the human face doesn’t have to be flawless to be powerful — it just has to be real.