Kate Milsom

Kate studied Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University, spending her final year at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago on an extended travel award.

By the late 1990's, emboldened to pursue her painting career by formidable gallery owner and art advocate the late Elizabeth Organ, a series of events influenced her work, beginning with the move from London to a Welsh border castle and later a self-imposed period of exile in Venice.

Past experience in art restoration cultivated a reverence for authentic techniques and materials – Kate works in oil on muslin-covered boards primed with home made organic gesso. From the anomalous combination of painted and collaged elements what she terms “intricate scenes of social malfunction" evolve.

Kate is 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 often investigate socio-political themes using historical comparisons to highlight contemporary issues. Using the form of narrative portraiture the images are intended to ask of the viewer “Where do I fit in?" and subsequently “Where do you?" and ultimately “Are we all sitting comfortably?"

Kate exhibits widely - her work has most recently been shown at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol and acquired by the University of South Wales for their permanent collection. She also has an increasing following of private European collectors from Southern France to Croatia.