Katy Papineau
- Alumni, 2019
- Faculty
- Young Artists Faculty
Biography
Katy Papineau (b.1991) is a figurative painter based in London. She completed The Drawing Year in 2019, and presented her debut solo exhibition A Poison Tree at Blue Shop Gallery in July 2023.
Papineau’s practice encompasses drawing, painting and printmaking. Colour is an essential vehicle through which she conveys emotion and atmosphere, working instinctively in thin layers of paint and pigment. Her process involves a wealth of references from everyday life, film, literature, and art history.
Her current focus is on the ambiguity human connection. She draws in public spaces, seeking out intriguing moments that occur between the people she observes. While drawing she takes notes on her experiences beyond the visual: temperature, scents, snippets of conversation she overhears. In the studio she layers the information collected in her drawings with personal symbols to create ambiguous narrative paintings that capture her internal world.
On drawing
Drawing can express something individual and capture something shared. I am drawn to art that contains something I recognise, often as a result of the artist’s observation of our shared external world. In my own work, I use drawing to collect information about my everyday experiences, cementing images into my memory through the process of looking.
At the same time, I want to look at art and experience something new: to see the world through the eyes of another person. Drawing can be a way to illuminate our inner lives. I draw images that form in my mind during sleep, while reading stories, or reliving memories.
These modes of looking are not distinct. When drawing, I find that they often merge. But knowing that they are both important, sometimes I allow myself to be completely absorbed in the world around me, and at other times I prioritise my mind’s eye.
