About Kate Evans

The artist is a chameleon of the modern day; adapting and changing to suit the environment they are in and responding to the influence of socioeconomics, politics and lifestyle choices. Similar to this, Surrealism demonstrates the ability to evolve and can ‘change its skin’ in response to the environment or the audience it is placed. My personal attraction to Surrealism was a response to feeling like I did not fit anywhere in my local community. I was an outsider bearing unwanted social expectation and my rebellion was painting. My father died of cancer when I was young and my mother suffered from chronic depression. To cope with my reality I found solice in painting and surrealism was a sure way of making fun of subjects that normally troubled me. My style was not embraced with much support from teachers throughout my education history and more often than not was told there was no future in what I did and that high art was the only acceptable form. So much controversy and criticism only fuelled my thirst to be different from the rest even more. I closely followed the writings of Salvador Dali in Diary of a Genius and whenever I happened to come across resistance to my art I would remember an important message:

An open mind seeks irrational thoughts which should not discarded. They should be embraced and used in whatever form to create something new and exciting.

I produce art in a strategic method - researching the subject of inspiration for weeks prior to the moment I begin sketching out the basic composition. I will utilise archives, documents, films, books, practically anything that I can see and feel and use to my advantage. When I am content with the amount of information I have collated I proceed with a basic line drawing to bring together my ideas. At this stage the work is very much in its infancy and is subject to brutal changes where composition and shape may be concerned until I am fully satisfied with what I have achieved. Therefore the process of distortion and surrealism begins and is preceded by the beginnings of the painting or final drawing where I work in dark and midtones first and follow with light building up realistic and detailed representations of the subjects I am using.