Kathryn Dolby is an emerging visual artist residing in the Northern Rivers, NSW. Dolby’s paintings reflect an intent and expressive curiosity about the quiet and seemingly insignificant in-between moments of everyday life. Through an intuitive exploration of colour and reductive forms, her current investigations delve into the emotional and physical landscapes that are deeply immersed in her transition into and through motherhood. In 2014 she completed her Bachelor of Visual Arts at Southern Cross University in Lismore and was awarded the Lismore Regional Gallery Graduate Award. As a result of this Kathryn had her first solo exhibition in the Lismore Regional Gallery in 2015. During her time at university she was awarded the Camera House Visual Arts Scholarship and the Kaske award for printmaking. In the subsequent years Kathryn has shown work in various regional galleries, with Small Spaces in Sydney, Modern Times in Melbourne and continues to exhibit nationally.

An interest in the intimacy of simple moments that occur through everyday life continues to permeate my evolving practice. These latest works that venture into the world of merging abstraction and representation are an oblique, personal reference to the shifting, yet repetitious transition into and through parenthood. Through symbolic motifs, collected colours from my immediate surroundings and a desire to embrace a level of ‘clunkiness’ with the brush, Mud House aims to explore the poetry in the grittier aspects of ‘building a home’. The word Mud alludes to the natural landscape surrounding our home and also the more chaotic emotional aspects of familial relationships, whereas ‘House’ is indicative of elements of order, as reflected through representations of farmland, architectural structures and the repetitive symbol of the baby gates. In all of my paintings I continue to seek a quiet and contemplative middle ground, so the ambiguous glimpses of narrative make space for the viewer to fill with their own interpretations and curiosities.

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MUD HOUSE | Kathryn Dolby & Hana Vasak
Curated & presented by Amber Creswell Bell
@ Saint Cloche Upstairs
37 Macdonald Street, Paddington NSW
Exhibition runs: 11-18 May
Opening reception: Saturday 11 May (please join us for drinks from midday)
Gallery hours: Wed to Sun, 11am to 4pm.
Contact: amber@ambercreswell.com/ 0414 747 761