Congratulations to Kate Endacott for earning her place as a Finalist in the Boynes Emerging Artist Award 7th Edition!

Who are you?

I’ve had a paint brush in my hand since before I could talk. I do art because I love it. I am a self-taught artist and architect based out of Sydney, Australia. After living in New York and working as an architect at Soho House for five years I have returned home to pursue my love of art. My art is about my world. The artworks are an observation and expression of the colours, shapes and fractals in the world around me. They explore my home, the great Australian East Coast, as well as my adventures and experiences in New York City.  

The process of creating art is as important to me as the final work. It is thought, expression, therapy. It is a sense of accomplishment, a skill to be honed, a canvas to make a statement. Art inspires. One idea opens a plethora of others. To be an artist is a privilege.

What inspired you to utilize painting as a medium?

I first discovered my love of watercolours during a University Architecture Course through Ancient Greece and Italy. Watercolour simply felt right. Like I could actually express the reverence I carried for those ancient spaces. Every brush stroke was more than a recreation of what I could see. It was a thought. A feeling. Committing my emotional response to paper. As much as I am reticent to admit it, watercolour fits my personality perfectly. It requires patience and precision, each layer planned in advance

How would you describe your work?

I love making art! There are very few activities in life that capture every part of my mind and imagination, holding my attention for hours and hours. My artworks are delicate and highly detailed. They are colourful. They explore the world as I see it. Even across my different collections, inspired by different events and locations, a continuation of ideas and exploration can be observed. Be it in details or vastness, I see a rivalry that exists between the man-made and natural environment. There is a constant back and forth as one tries to correct the other; rust eating away metal structures, weeds pushing up through the pavement. My art emanates a strong sense of place. My studio is wherever I can take my watercolour pad.

Although I have some larger pieces, most of my artworks are smaller scale. I like that as you move closer to the image you see more and more within it. Composition plays a big role in my art. Composition enables the viewers’ attention to be focused and balances an artwork. Often, I’ll paint a cropped section of an image. My art encourages the viewer to reflect on details that may otherwise go unnoticed in the day to day.

Can you discuss the inspiration and thought process behind "Sunday Lunch"?

During the Covid-19 lockdown in New York I spent a lot of time sitting on my sixth-floor fire-escape watching the activities on Spring Street in Soho. At first the streets were empty. New Yorkers were eager to see their city come back to life. I remember the day the restaurant downstairs reopened. They played extremely loud Old Italian music to the street as if to announce, ‘We are open, we survived!’ One day I was clambering through the restaurant seating at my front door with the washing I’d just collected from the laundromat down the road and I noticed a very suave black man with a white hat eating his lunch. I was so taken by his aurora that I found myself climbing out my sixth-floor window onto the fire escape to look at him again. This is when I first realised the unique vantage point presented.

Can you walk us through the technical steps of creating "Sunday Lunch"?

I love painting with watercolours. What a lot of people may not realise it that the whites need to be preserved as white spaces on the paper. Watercolour is all about the layers. I often remind myself as I’m painting to not paint what I know something to be but to paint what I see. What I see is a series of shapes and colours. Always use good quality paints and paper.

What do you hope to communicate to an audience with your work?

I paint and draw the things that I see in my world. We live in such a complex and beautiful world. We forget to just stop and see it. My art aims to share a glimpse of how I see the world and in turn encourage other people to stop and enjoy the details around them.

Have you experimented with other mediums?

Yes, I have worked with a plethora of art mediums. I love that each medium has its own characteristics, application techniques and a life of its own. Often, I’ll identify my subject matter first, then select a medium that best captures it. My collection “Ink”, as the title suggests, is made with ink on paper. This choice is definitely influenced by my architectural background. My collection “Ephemera” features cropped details of everyday objects drawn at a large scale. I chose to use pastel pencils for these. I felt that the texture and the way the pastel pencils could blend best described the tangibility of the objects and unusual lighting.

Can you talk about your biggest learning experience during the process of creating your work?

I have a few answers to this question:

1. Every artist has a stack of papers and canvas under their bed that didn’t make the cut. I am no exception. We are our own harshest critic.

2. We have a family joke that there is an angel with in heaven with bluewings. When creating my Final Year High School artwork, I had spent countless hours drawing a life size body floating in water with oil pastels and oil sticks. The plan was to carefully paint vivid blue dye over to create the background and resist the oils. I had everything set up on the back deck: the huge sheet of paper 100 x 1500cm, my paint brushes, the blue dye. It was a matter of hours before my work was due. My father came over to watch and without looking down he kicked over the big tub of blue dye. It went everywhere! It flooded rapidly over my meticulous drawing and somehow miraculously ebbed and stopped precisely at every edge at just the right spot, none of it breaching the perimeter of my drawing onto the white border! [or ruining my mother’s white travertine tiles underneath]

3. I very naively thought that I could take a year off, create a bunch of beautiful artworks and sell them. I’ve learnt that being an artist is 50% creating art and 50% attempting to run a business and be a marketing manager, a graphic designer, a photographer, a web-developer, a salesman, a networker so that my art can actually be sold. I am so grateful for the Boynes Emerging Artist Award for supporting and helping artists get exposure.

Can you discuss your biggest success since starting your artistic journey?

I have been invited to Co-Curate the First Class 22 Exhibition at Lake Macquarie Regional Art Gallery. My HSC Body of Work was showcased in the First Class 09 Exhibition back in 2010. It is in honour to inspire and encourage the next generation of artists. Art has played an integral part in my life and career. I am so excited to be able to share it with others. Being a curator has been a wonderful opportunity to look back on the past 12 years see how much my art has developed.

What projects are you working on currently?

Ohh yes, I am currently working on my Coast Collection 02 series. These artworks capture details from the Australian East Coast where I am immersed at the moment. Below is a snippet about the Rock Pool Painting:

I am endlessly captivated by the miniature worlds within rock pools. There is never a moment when they are exactly the same; the ebb and flow of water, the refraction from the surface bubbles on the sand and rocks. They are constantly changing. Even when we don’t stop to look at them, this phenomenon continues. These beautiful details come and go as if they were made to bring glory to something greater than us. We are privileged enough to enjoy them if we choose to open our eyes.

What is your dream project or piece you hope to accomplish?

My dream project is to have a solo exhibition, which I am currently working towards. I love that I can share my art and practice with so many people on social media, further to that, my artworks are created physically with the intention of being seen and experienced physically. I’d love to have all my people in one place to celebrate art and the world around us together.

As a finalist, do you have any advice for artists who want to submit to awards, competitions, residencies, etc.?

Yes, apply for everything! Be patient. Keep applying. Keep trying. Keep creating. Consider getting digital reproductions of your work made. The high-quality images are not only useful in applying for competitions, but can be used for reproducing fine art prints and your own records. Start your submission well in advance of the deadline. Ask friends and family to review your submission before you send it. Practice your writing skills. I saw a meme the other day that said, ‘if artists have to submit written statements with their artworks, then writers should have to submit drawings and paintings with their stories and poems.’ Keep your submission focused. It can be tempting to submit one of each type of work you do, but sometimes it's more powerful to show that you can hone in and focus on one area of exploration or medium or subject matter.

Lastly, I like to ask everyone what advice they would give to their fellow artists/photographers, what is your advice?

Do what you love! Be passionate. Be prolific. Practice, practice, practice. Art can’t ever be wrong. It’s what you choose to make it. How freeing is that?!

To view more of Kate Endacott’s work

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