KATE COX
Kate Cox (b. 1974, Auckland, New Zealand) is a contemporary painter based in Kerikeri, New Zealand. Working primarily with acrylic paint, oil sticks, oil pastel, chalk pastel, acrylic ink, and graphite pencil, she creates large-scale abstract paintings on unstretched canvas, then stretches the finished works. This approach allows for expressive freedom, physical engagement, and careful compositional control.
Cox is best known for her gestural abstract paintings distinguished by dynamic movement, playful linearity, and richly layered surfaces. Cox's practice explores the intuitive processes of painting and the ways in which instinctive mark-making can give form to personal experience. Her work reflects on themes of solitude, resilience, and belonging, considering how painting provides a space for calm, reflection, and emotional restoration. Drawing visual connections between landscape, family heritage, and the planting of new roots, her paintings balance energetic gestures with moments of quiet contemplation. Her colour palette shifts between vibrant, saturated compositions and subtle, muted tones, responding intuitively to mood and the evolving rhythm of each work.
Cox has exhibited her work in solo and group shows in Australia and New Zealand. Her paintings are collected in NZ, Australia and the UK, and she has participated as a finalist in the Walker and Hall Waiheke Art Awards and the Estuary Art and Ecology Awards.
"Painting is an intuitive act of translation. My practice is driven by heightened perception and an ongoing curiosity about how emotion, memory, and lived experience can be transformed into abstract visual language. I am drawn to the space between what is revealed and what remains concealed, where painting becomes less about explanation and more about discovery. It is a process of navigating uncertainty through instinct, allowing the work to evolve beyond conscious control.
A conversation, encounter, or passing emotion can cling to me long after the moment has passed, travelling through my body and into the brush before settling on the canvas. Through expansive gestures, playful mark-making, layered surfaces, and shifting colour palettes, I translate these experiences into paintings that reflect an evolving inner landscape.
Working on large-scale unstretched canvas gives me the physical freedom to move intuitively, where the energy of the body becomes inseparable from the act of painting. References to landscape, family heritage, and the planting of new roots emerge naturally within this process, grounding abstraction in personal experience without illustrating it directly.
Painting is both an act of vulnerability and a search for connection. By trusting intuition and embracing the unpredictable nature of abstraction, I create spaces where viewers are invited to bring their own memories and emotions to the work. Rather than offering fixed narratives, my paintings seek moments of recognition—where resilience, curiosity, and authenticity can be quietly shared." - Kate Cox
