About the artist
Katharine Harvey is a Canadian conceptual painter and multi-media artist based in Toronto. A bold and energetic palette characterizes all her multi-layered works. She combines the haptic presence of shimmering and glowing colours with complex and surprising elements that both obscure and reveal photorealistic details. Throughout her career, she has switched naturally between mediums, allowing her paintings to inform her public artwork and vice versa. This process inspired Katharine to create a body of work that includes multi-layered acrylic paintings, recycled plastic installations, monumental public art, kinetic sculptures, and an illuminated drone show.
Artists Statement
My 35-year artistic practice ranges from painting to installation and public art on a monumental scale. A bold and energetic palette characterizes all my multi-layered works. I combine the haptic presence of shimmering and glowing colours with complex and surprising design elements that both obscure and reveal photorealistic details.My creative process starts with my photograph, which I render in loose brushstrokes. Then, I build up the canvas with numerous layers of acrylic paint and gel to create fascinating 3-dimensional effects. Repainting luminous highlights on the uppermost surfaces, I continue to play with depth in order to emphasize the interactive quality of radiant colours. For my large-scale public artworks, I carry over this methodology of film layering to create hand-painted or digitally printed glass and mosaics that explore captivating interventions of reflective light.
Biography
Katharine Harvey is a Canadian conceptual painter and multi-media artist based in Toronto. She studied at Queen’s University for her BFA and earned her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Victoria, B.C. Throughout her career, Katharine has switched naturally between mediums, allowing her paintings to inform her public artwork and vice versa. This process inspired her to create a body of work that includes multi-layered acrylic paintings, recycled plastic installations, monumental public installations, kinetic sculptures, and an illuminated drone show.
Her 35-year artistic practice ranges from painting to installation and public art on a monumental scale. A bold and energetic palette characterizes all her multi-layered works. She switched from oil paint to acrylic because fast-drying water-based mediums can be quickly built up in multiple transparent layers, creating 3-D effects.
Katharine Harvey is an award-winning artist and has received grants and accolades from various Canadian art institutions, such as the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and a People’s Choice award from the Nuit Blanche Festival in Toronto. Her public artworks include art glass and mosaics for Toronto’s Chester Subway Station, as well as hand-painted glass windows for Great Gulf, and digitally printed glass for Concord Adex.
She has created over 20 temporary installations of thousands of recycled plastic objects in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, Monterey Bay, and Hamburg. As this work grew in scope, she discovered free and abundant materials in her home and neighbourhood, such as recycled plastic containers for food, toys, and cosmetics.
The artist has exhibited in both commercial galleries and institutional museums throughout North America, such as the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., the MacLaren Art Centre (Barrie, Ontario), the Art Gallery of Regina, and Nicholas Metivier Gallery (Toronto). Her work is part of corporate art collections like the Bank of Montreal, Canada Council Art Bank, Ontario Hospital Association, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, and TD Canada Trust, as well as many private collections worldwide.
For the past 14 years, Katharine has served on the board of directors of an affordable housing project in Parkdale, the Phoenix Place apartments.
Contact
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123-456-7890