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BIOGRAPHY

 

 

Kathryn Le Grice was born in Swansea in 1972. She obtained an honours degree in Philosophy, with a focus on Aesthetics, from the University of Leeds in 1991, and a Masters degree in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester in 2004. Since then she has worked as a full-time artist, dividing her time between Wales and California. She is currently based in Ojai, Southern California.

 

She is primarily interested in the patterns and forms we see everyday, both in the movements of the natural world, and in the landscapes, cityscapes, and interiors in which we live. Her native South Wales has provided the subject matter for much of her work, although she has gathered inspiration from many places. Her unique style of highly patterned cityscapes developed as a result of visits to New York and Paris, and she has been inspired by the landscape and light of Italy, Spain and California. Her painting also reflects her deep appreciation of the work of Matisse, Picasso and Rouault. Kathryn has synthesized these influences into a number of approaches to painting, often rich in pattern and colour. Over the past few years, Kathryn has become interested in painting both interiors – her studios, living spaces and hotel rooms – and also ‘patterned portraits’, sometimes from life but often from her imagination, including the ‘Painted Ladies’ project, comprising more than 70 larger-than-life-size portraits. During the recent years spent in Ojai, Southern California, she has turned to the subject of landscape, flight and natural forms.

 

Kathryn has exhibited widely, participating in solo shows as well as many joint and group shows both in the UK and the US. She has undertaken commissions for Swansea University and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board, which appear on the BBC ‘Your Paintings’ website. She has had her work selected for the ‘Welsh Artist of the Year’ exhibition and has had design work published by Paperchase. Her paintings are in many private collections throughout Europe and the U.S. and also in the collection of the National Library of Wales. In 2016, she was invited to produce a painting to form part of the Welsh Collection for the international show Imago Mundi. Her work was selected for cover art for ‘Devolutionary Readings’ ed. Matthew Jarvis (2017), a scholarly volume on modern poetry, and for the acclaimed novel ‘Element of Water’ by Stevie Davies (2019) as well as providing the conference image for the 2018 AWWE conference in Wales. One of her paintings was recently purchased by J D Wetherspoon. In 2017 Kathryn was taken on by the renowned SFMOMA artists gallery in San Francisco.

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘A new painting should be a unique thing,

a birth bringing a new face into the

representation of the world through the human spirit.’

—Henri Matisse