About and artist statement.

Kathy Williams is a visual artist and educator whose practice is rooted in inclusivity and democratising the creative process. With an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, and a QTS and MA in Arts and Education from UCL, her career has been dedicated to exploring innovative ways to involve diverse communities in her work. Drawing on her own experiences as a neurodiverse individual from a working-class background, Williams creates opportunities for collaboration and dialogue, challenging traditional art-making hierarchies. She uses she/her pronouns. * written by T Mikich

Artist Statement 

I make work that is paint based and created in response to place, space, time and people. I express by using paint in ways that paint behaves naturally create=ing large gestural marks often twinned with application by brush. I apply on transparent surfaces that hold the paint as each mark is installed not on a wall but in physical space. People can walk around and through painted work, people can select their own abstract compositions and photograph. There is magic as the 3-dimensional paint-ing converts to an individual flat image of abstract painting on people’s devices.

The work is time based, lasts as long as the project. People take pictures which are what remain when the work is dismantled.

Re-assembled work always has a different meaning as the context of place and time always changes reflecting the decisions we make and live by influenced by context of that time.

I have always worked with the process of painting; the image or end product has never been of importance to me. The work starts at the ideas stage, the site visit, the talking to others. I decide and make the initial install, but, like making a painting when we see what our ideas are, there is always the need to resolve the idea into what we see in the place of the work. I am vulnerable as I (publicly) paint the solution to the initial work so it lives well in its environment. The place and site has a huge impact on the reading of the work. The work can only exist as it is in that place and it enables us to see what we think as familiar, with new eyes.

I offer conversation, I do not offer an absolute truth or finished piece of work. For my work to be effective at visual communication I usually work with local communities for their input, I often invite others to make their own marks with paint in an effort to share the experience of painting and what paint can do. My work includes the idea and offerings of others.