Katie Oaks

Katie Oaks is a self-taught artist who has been painting for many years, predominantly using Resene Testpots in a range of colours on various surfaces, mostly canvas block and wood.  Working in an instinctive manner Katie's most successful paintings embrace the haphazard and erratic nature of abstract painting, blending colours and creating rhythms that draw the viewer into the painting where they can find their own meaning and relationship to and with the work.  

Sometimes her artworks happen very quickly, so that she is left disappointed that the journey is over so soon, and she will hurriedly move on to the next work. Often Katie will have multiple paintings on the go at once. More often artworks will be abandoned despondently and impatiently then picked up at a later stage to get painted over again and again. Layers are built up and scraped back until Katie is happy with the result.

Katie approaches her artwork first and foremost as a means of escapism - a time when she can switch off from the demands of work, of being a mother and wife. She can focus on creating and letting images come to her on the canvas.