Saturday 4 - Saturday 25 March 2023
Open 10am - 4pm
FREE entry.
Join us this Saturday 4 March from 10am to enjoy our new exhibition celebrating the work of the late great Kathy Bruce who we sadly lost in March 2022.
Kathy’s ceramics and paintings reflect her life in South Africa which inspired the patterns and colours which run throughout her work. Her childhood in that glorious, warm and sunny country gave her a fascination for ethnic and tribal designs that are a recurring theme in her pieces.
All work will be for sale.
KATHRYN BRUCE – ESSENCE OF THE EARTH
Art and all things creative were central in Kathi’s life and became a passion that evolved and allowed her many avenues to explore and investigate.
Kathryn was born and raised in Africa, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The privilege of growing up in a glorious, warm, sunny country offered her a rich feast that fed all the senses; from the dry, parched earth during winter, to the clean, green hues of long summer days that washed into crimson sunsets, igniting the horizon. Having spent those long halcyon days on her family’s farm, the natural beauty of Africa left a lasting impression on Kathi’s artwork.
Influenced consciously and unconsciously by the earth's colours and changing seasons; Kathi’s pieces were heavily influenced by nature, as well as the graphic patterns of the ethnic and tribal designs she grew up with.
Kathi’s main painting medium was oils and cold wax on wooden panels. Painting intuitively, she relied on the freedom of self-expression and trusting where the process would take her. When painting, Kathi used layers of oil and cold wax to build up translucent coats of colour and then, with various tools and found objects, would scrape back, etch lines, and make marks into the surface, repeating this process until the canvas resembled the raw and worn earth in all its wondrous nuances.
During the pandemic, Kathi rediscovered her love for ceramics and worked tirelessly to discover and hone her own individual style. Experimenting with shapes, styles and colour, Kathi enjoyed the unpredictability of firing and found a previously untapped freedom within the medium. Her every piece is hand-built and one-of-a-kind; the gratifying experience of working raw clay into a finished object of beauty beyond rewarding when capturing the essence of the earth.
With a background in Commercial and Graphic Art, Kathi’s path took her into Textile Design - a successful career spanning many years. She was fortunate to travel extensively and has lived in Malawi, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Kathi taught art to school students, at an art institute and adults classes.