Painter Katherine Throne explores femininity through her work.
Katherine Throne’s paintings of flowers explore their status as a motif of femininity.
Flowers may look beautiful on a canvas but for painter Katherine Throne they represent more than just a pretty picture. The Auckland artist has exclusively painted blooms since working on her Master of Fine Arts at Elam where she began exploring flowers’ relationship with femininity. “What I paint now are the ephemeral qualities of the feminine I see in nature,” she says. “The courage and tenacity, the steadfastness, the joy of uniqueness and also the sense of community. When I’m painting wildflowers in a meadow or roses hanging over a wall, I’m thinking what would they be thinking or feeling right now?” Katherine uses oil paint for its materiality and the way it can be manipulated, but says it’s the way light can travel through layers of oil paint creating depth and luminosity that has her hooked. Her largest paintings are often favourites because they give her space to make the brush strokes and tempo transitions she’s naturally inclined to create. “I’m an expressive painter and there’s a lot of gesture and movement in my work. Rhythm is important, and a lot of the composition is about working out how the eye will move across the canvas and where it will be drawn in or be allowed to rest.” See her work at katherinethrone.com, instagram.com/katherinethrone and at a group show at Sanderson Contemporary Art, Auckland, in December.