Art lovers assemble to bear witness to the radical juxtapositions and reframing of perceptual reality that is the artwork of Katherine Blackburne.
The sought-after New York artist who hails from the Sunshine Coast is back to not only see family but also to exhibit her works for the first time on her home turf.
She’s held exhibitions all over Australia and the States but Katherine Blackburne has returned for her annual trip to visit family, and this time she’s bringing home more than a few paintings.
Beginning her formal art training aged seven at the Sunshine Coast Art Group in the ’80s in the Maroochydore Library, Ms Blackburne recalled her instant affiliation and love of oil painting.
“I remember insisting to do oil painting classes – the teacher said I was too young but I demanded and she gave in,” she said.
“That was where I did my first oil painting class.
“All through school I always took classes and I always knew this is what I wanted to do. I’ve been an artist all along.”
Ms Blackburne was described in the Financial Review a few years ago as “one of the top 10 artists to watch overseas”.
“At the time I thought ‘this is great’,” she said.
“I’ve come from this little town on the Sunshine Coast and here I am making paintings in my studio in New York.
“Something like that is really meaningful, people find you and that feels good.”
Fresh from holding her Flooding Lake exhibition in LA, the former St John’s College Nambour student revealed just how satisfying it was to showcase an eclectic body of works at the very place she grew up – Cotton Tree.
“This exhibition is really meaningful,” Ms Blackburne said.
“It is held in a building that my father Jim Blackburne built, where his offices were and where I used to work as a kid.
“So to show my paintings here and to have been away so long and to be inviting old school friends and the public to come along and see these works is a dream come true.
“When I look back on my history and think about where I came from and where I’ve been and those early beginnings of my artistic journey, it all makes sense to me. It’s something very sentimental and beautiful.”
She described her latest self-titled exhibition as “a personal story and a visual history” made up of oil-on-canvas paintings depicting “radical juxtapositions” in varying household sizes from as far back as 2009 through to 2021.
“These are some gems of some pivotal collections of mine that I’ve been squirrelling away over the years,” she said.
“I see a significant chunk of personal history in these works – some are quite different – but the thing that’s always present in my work is the radical juxtapositions and reframing of perceptual reality.
“Sometimes that looks like photo realistic painting, but the figures are in strange positions with reflections that are distorted. They (the paintings) are my way of seeing the world.
“It’s a fun show, the works are serious, but the show is fun and hopefully accessible.”
One strong and ever-present theme in Ms Blackburne’s works is landscape, which she attributes to growing up in Australia and specifically the Sunshine Coast.
“Some of the first works I made in the States were very much dealing with Australian landscapes and the presence they still had with me all the way over there,” she said.
“A lot of these painting have organic forms. There is always this relationship between the human body and landscape and the various alienations from landscape. There are some abstractions that point to dream-like realities and hyper-realism.”
With her last exhibition just wrapping up in LA, Ms Blackburne described it as a great way to round off completing her Masters in Fine Art degree at Columbia University.
“I had a really great solo show,” she said.
“It was beautiful, I sold placement work in a really important collection over there in that exhibition.”
Her latest exhibition will also feature textiles and zero-waste dresses designed, handmade and hand-painted by Ms Blackburne with some images relating to the artwork in her show.
“This exhibition is really different and different work that I have ever seen in this area,” she said.
“There is something to be said about someone who is from here and remains firmly tethered here but lives elsewhere and brings back ideas from abroad – that’s what the essence of travellers are.”
The Katherine Blackburne Studio + Gallery Exhibition is on at 1A, 7 The Esplanade, Cotton Tree, until January 13.
For more information head to Katherine Blackburne pop-up gallery.
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