PERFECT HAS NEVER INTERESTED ME
I began drawing people, birds, cats and other creatures that were deliberately imperfect.
Long legs. Strange eyes. Oversized mouths. Awkward expressions. Animals that seemed to know something you didn’t.
And somewhere along the way, they developed personalities.
For me, personality rarely lives in perfection.
None of us is perfectly proportioned, perfectly behaved or perfectly put together. We might spend a great deal of time pretending otherwise, but it is often the oddities, flaws and contradictions that make someone interesting.
I think the same is true of animals.
That is what I look for when I draw — the character underneath the surface. The private thought. The sideways glance. The conversation that may or may not be happening between a bird and a cat when nobody is watching.
BEHIND KAT HOUSE ART
It started with a Jackson Pollock
I don’t remember a time when art didn’t matter to me.
When I was young, my parents had an art book with a picture of a Jackson Pollock painting in it. I would stare at that image for hours. I didn’t necessarily understand why I was so drawn to it — I just knew that I was.
The passion was always there. The confidence took a little longer.
Years later, I was accepted as an artist at the Met Galleries in Highfields, Toowoomba. That was important for me. It gave me enough confidence to apply to study art at university, even though I had absolutely no idea where it was going to lead.
And perhaps that was the point.
I was simply grateful to have found my way into the art world.
FINDING MY OWN WAY
University took me in different directions and I eventually majored in ceramics. Later, I ran my own ceramic studio in Maleny on the Sunshine Coast for four years.
But painting and drawing never really went away.
Eventually I found myself returning to where I had started — to paper, paint, line, colour and characters.
Only this time, I knew much more clearly what interested me.
I have never been particularly drawn to making what people expect me to make.
Kat House Art grew from that world.
Every piece begins as an original drawing or painting. Some remain artworks. Others find their way onto heavyweight cotton, cards and things made to live outside a frame.
I like the idea that art doesn’t always have to sit politely on a wall.
Sometimes it can be worn.
Sometimes it can arrive in the post.
And sometimes a strange bird with enormous feet and the words bird love beside it is quite enough.
Original art. Made wearable.
Imperfect on purpose.
KAT HOUSE ART
Drop a Line
Seen something you love? Have a question, an idea, or something slightly ridiculous in mind?
I’d love to hear from you. Whether it’s about an artwork, a shirt, a collaboration or just something you think belongs in the Kat House world — drop me a line.