Kate McCrickard is a British painter living in Paris, France. She studied Fine art at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, obtaining first class honours in the double discipline of History of Art and Painting. Painting, drawing and printmaking are at the heart of her practice. She has mounted several solo exhibitions in London, New York, Belgium and Tai Pei with Art First Gallery, David Krut Projects, De Queeste Gallery and Ming Dian Gallery; she has also exhibited in the London Royal Academy renowned Summer Exhibition and the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh; Kate’s drypoint print ‘Ghosted’ was exhibited in the new acquisitions section of the British Museum, London, in October 2024. Future projects include a curated solo display at the British Art Fair in September 2024 at the Saatchi Gallery, London with Julian Page Fine Art, Monomania at Atelier Michael Woolworth in Paris and a group exhibition with Galerie Huang Beli, Paris curated by Karen Tronel in March 2025.  Ming Dian Gallery, Tai Pei will exhibit a solo stand of Kate’s works at Art Central Art Fair in Hong Kong, also in March 2025.

Kate’s works belong to the collections of the British Museum; De Reede Museum, Antwerp; LACMA; New York Public Library; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Pallant House Gallery; Royal Scottish Academy and Weslyean University Davison Collection.

Kate served as juror on the now extant Art in Print journal’s Prix de Print and worked as a curator during her 7 years as director and programme coordinator at David Krut Projects NYC where she worked with artists William Kentridge, El Anatsui, Suzanne McClelland and Carrie Moyer. In 2010, she wrote a monograph on Kentridge for Tate Publishing, London. McCrickard was also a regular contributor to the journal Art in Print. Her work has been written up in the following publications:

The Brooklyn Rail, Penny Florence, Shoring up Silence, https://brooklynrail.org/2023/10/criticspage/Shoring-up-Silence-Embodied-Truth-and-Earthly-Being; Artnet: 18 Things You Should See During New York City’s Print week, 2017 ; Art in Print, Artist in Art in Print, The Alcohol Issue, Volume 7, Number 4, 2017; Wall Street International, Emergence of Creativity, November 2016; The Brooklyn Rail, Proenza, Mary: Reviews: True Monotypes, IPCNY. May 2015; The Jackdaw, Easel Notes, 2015; Craig Inskip, Yvonne: Walk to Free Art London, April 29th 2014, http://walktofreeartlondon.blogspot.fr/2014/04/281-peas-by-kate-mccrickard.html; Bindman, Catherine: Art in Print, Exhibitions review, 2013; Image featured in Frieze magazine review of La Forét Intérieure, Barry, Robert, 14/11/2013 http://www.frieze.com/shows/review/alexandra-grant/; Art in Print, Exhibition Review, Kid, 2013

Artist statement:

​​“It’s not a matter of painting life, it’s a matter of giving life to painting.”  Pierre Bonnard

I want to put the human exchange into paint: our quirks, our oddness, our differences. I paint figures on stages, performing on the canvas as I perform with the paint—at the table, on the bed, in my local betting bars, backstage in the theatre or in a forest.  They are observed from sketches made from life or historic paintings and sculpture; others are imagined or remembered. I see the world through art historical images and in each work, there is always a prompt, something recognised from art history. Some figures are dressed in contemporary clothing while others are dressed in clothes from centuries past. Some are naked, some are animals. Most are knotted or entangled in an enactment of our noisy modern lives. They are pressed into crowded urban spaces, ghosted or addicted to sociaI media, isolated within messy communities on the brink of folly. But some of these performers are also just lounging, draped over bars, flopped like Degas’ Absinthe Drinker (See Flamers) not really doing anything. They look at themselves being looked at, look at others inside their painted world and perhaps look out at us, beckoning us in.

I see these painted people as more than portraits—they are types, even tronies: the drinker, the smoker, a smoking child, peeping Tom, the punk, the lover, the goth. There’s nearly always a voyeur within the frame. I am interested in the slippage of observation into fiction, people that blend into types, real people, but also inventions.

I begin with an idea usually taken from an observational sketch and draw out a composition that gets pushed through many changes as I work through the image. The mark is quick and speed is important to bring liveliness to the surface and keep the eye roaming. I work and rework the canvas leading to slightly gnarly surfaces, like painted catacombs with many previous images buried underneath. The ‘grip’ that overworking and grappling out an image on a canvas brings represents a deliberate avoidance of super-realism, preciousness and the shiny surfaces that please Instagram, a need for something more concrete. Paint is an unfinished medium that lends itself well to my motley crew of odd characters, a display of human imperfection.