KATHERINE MAHER

ABOUT KATHERINE MAHER

I am interested in inviting a conversation between my art and the viewer, whether it be through a drawing of a seemingly everyday street scene, a surreal collage, or an abstract painting.

Through painting I am interested in creating spaces that invite the viewer to participate in a dialogue, developing their own relationship with the work. I like to create suggestions of narrative but enjoy the ambiguous nature and the individual interpretations and dialogue that result. Many of my abstract paintings explore themes of memory and a sense of place.

The process for my abstract pieces is physical and is integral to my work. I apply multiple layers and a reductive process to slowly build up a history of marks. Whilst I apply a lot of physical energy to my works I enjoy the dichotomy of my presence being largely absent from the finished pieces. My painting practice is of a intuitive and organic nature. I work with the painting, which largely dictates the direction itself, guided by a sense of what I am looking to capture. This is often not fully visualised until it emerges, resulting in a mixture of design and spontaneity.

Whilst my paintings remain abstract I am very much inspired by my surroundings, particularly change in people, place and architecture. I often draw on location as research and to practice capturing a sense of the place and my surroundings through observational drawing. This intuitive and connected approach translates to my abstract work. I apply underlying hints of form and structure as I work towards capturing a sense, a feeling, or an unvisited memory.

On first appearance my work can be quite varied as I work across a range of media from collage, to drawings, to abstract paintings. Underlying all strands there is an ambiguity and a sense of time and place which hopefully invites the viewer to engage, and poses more questions than answers.