Kate Maura

What influences my work is primarily nature and my fascination with the beauty in motion and forms I find from being immersed in nature. My muse is the lightness and random movements of the butterfly and its environment in garden spaces; it is my entry point and where I feel transformed by the beauty that surrounds me as I drift into becoming part of the space. I use their wings as part of my visual language to express how these immersive experiences with nature make me feel. As I draw from observation, I am more deeply connected to observe all that surrounds me and feel within myself. The butterfly is a metaphor for transformation and crossing other worlds.

Other things that inform my artwork include time at libraries reading biology, poetry, and philosophy, in particular John O’Donohue, as well as recent books on neuroscience discoveries and the power of aesthetics in rewiring the brain.

The Embrace series is an exploration that began in late 2023, reflecting on embracing life’s experiences and the importance of self-acceptance. The work began to play in a different way, with wing forms in tighter and looser interplay within a central overall form in the picture plane. Visually, with forms intertwining, like in an embrace, yet loose enough to move to the next step, like in a dance, if you will. The titles of the works reference dance steps.

The process I use to create starts with observational drawings. Then I combine the analogue into digital on my iPad, transforming the work again. It is an intuitive process, bringing many aspects of what has inspired me together so that the work reflects so much about me. The interlayering and opacity express a visual language of fleeting moments, things in motion with a mix of darkness and light, which is, for me, an expression of a variety of emotions one moves through. I have brought in more ranges of colour and intensity, reflecting those emotions. The overarching beauty is what I am embracing in these memories as I create them.

‘In the experience of beauty, we awaken and surrender in the same act. Beauty brings a sense of completion and sureness. We can slip into the beautiful with the same ease as we slip into the seamless embrace of water; something ancient in us already trusts that this embrace will hold us.” (J.O’Donohue).