The manipulation of images through collage intrigues me - I decontextualize, then, I reconstruct. I track down my ‘victims’ (images) and then rearrange their reality and reassemble their context.

Originally this practise utilised a hoard of printed ephemera gathered whilst on a long stay in Venice, where an abundance of cast-off museum guides and maps formed the daily floor-carpet of the city. Transposing these into a travel diary of sorts became an archival endeavour as much as an aesthetic engagement.

For me being creative is an inseparable combination of both the intellectual intention and the manual production. Past experience in art restoration cultivated a reverence for authentic techniques and materials - I currently only work on muslin covered boards primed with home-made organic gesso.

Over the last ten years this practise has developed. As we increasingly move toward a “paperless” culture beholden to digital forms another transposition has taken place within the work, in that the ‘collage’ elements are now sourced from ‘throw-away’ images on the internet, released from their pixels and returned to a version of their original form. What results is a mixture of seamlessly blended painted and collaged elements in what I like to describe as “intricate scenes of social malfunction” - a distinctive style of ‘antique surrealism’. Rearranged reality, assembled moments, and constructed views materialize in these mixed media works.

I am endlessly fascinated with how and why society functions, what ‘rules’ we accept to live by, where they are subverted and who among us is brave enough to pay them no heed. Working in series, my paintings investigate socio-political themes using historical comparisons to highlight contemporary issues.

Kate Milsom b.1968 Visual Artist

www.katemilsom.co.uk

BA (Hons) Fine Art
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago 1991-92
Oxford Brookes University 1989-91

Exhibitions Include:
2019 - 2021:
Oriel y Bont - Imagining History
Society of Women Artists, London
Battersea Affordable Art Fair
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
Winter Show, Martin Tinney, Cardiff

2018:
7 Painters, GalaFineArt , Bristol
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
Vis-à-Vis Oriel Y Bont, University of South Wales
Solo Show, Martin Tinney, Cardiff
Battersea Affordable Art Fair

2017 - 2016:
Winter Show, Martin Tinney, Cardiff
Art Fairs: Cheltenham, Edinburgh,
Battersea, Manchester
25 years Part I & II, Martin Tinney, Cardiff
Menier Gallery, SE1
Lion Street Gallery, Hay on Wye
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
Legend, MOMA Machynlleth

2010 – 2015:
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
Cork Street Open, London
Solo Show Brook Street Gallery, Hay on Wye
21st Annual Welsh Contemporaries, Powys

Awards:
Society of Women Artists Special Fine Art Award 2020
The Princess Michael of Kent Award 2020
Oxford Brookes University:
Study Scholarship to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago for the Autumn Semester 1991
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago:
Scholarship for extended study for the Spring Semester 1992

Collections:
Oriel Y Bont, University of South Wales
Mazuranic-Brlic-Ruzic Library and Collection, Croatia
Art Surgery, London
Private Collections: Wales, Scotland, Herefordshire, Liverpool, London, France, Holland, Portugal

Publications:
Vis-à-Vis: A conversation Project - Oriel Y Bont, University of South Wales
Fresh Paint, Artists & Illustrators Magazine 2017