Kate Downie (born 1958) is a United States-born Scottish artist who works in painting, printmaking and drawing. She is known for her landscape painting, and her works are held by Glasgow's main public galleries. Downie was born in

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

in 1958, to a Scottish father and English mother. She came to Scotland with her family when she was seven. She studied art in Aberdeen, and worked in several countries thereafter, including the United States and Holland, but is based in Edinburgh and known for her works portraying the Scottish landscape. Downie works in a range of media, including oil and acrylic painting, ink painting, collage, and lithography From 2004 to 2006, Downie was President of the Society of Scottish Artists. In 2005 she was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize. In the late 2000s, she created Coast Road Diaries, documenting a two-year journey around Scotland; the works formed a travelling exhibition that was critically acclaimed. A member of the

Royal Scottish Academy The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) is the country's national academy of art. It promotes contemporary art, contemporary Scottish art. The Academy was founded in 1826 by eleven artists meeting in Edinburgh. Originally named the Scottish Academy ...

, in 2010 she travelled to China to study

ink painting Ink wash painting ( zh, t=水墨畫, s=水墨画, p=shuǐmòhuà) is a type of Chinese ink brush painting which uses washes of black ink, such as that used in East Asian calligraphy, in different concentrations. It emerged during the Tang dynasty ...

, returning in 2011 and again in 2013. Works resulting from these residencies were displayed at the Royal Scottish Academy and at the Royal Glasgow Institute's Kelly Gallery. In 2014, Downie was commissioned as an artist-in-residence at the

Forth Road Bridge The Forth Road Bridge is a suspension bridge in Central Belt, east central Scotland. The bridge opened in 1964 and at the time was the List of longest suspension bridge spans, longest suspension bridge in the world outside the United States. ...

, to create an exhibition and work to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the bridge's construction. She described her role as conducting "an in-depth interview" with the structure, in order to gather the information and ideas to inform her work. She also climbed to the top of the structure, and spent two months working in an improvised studio directly under the bridge. Described by journalist Jan Patience as "sure, deft and fearless", examples of Downie's art are held in the

Glasgow Museums Glasgow Museums is the group of museums and galleries owned by the City of Glasgow, Scotland. They hold about 1.6 million objects including over 60,000 art works, over 200,000 items in the human history collections, over 21,000 items relating to ...

, including figurative works, such as ''12 Minute Baby'' (1993) and urban landscapes such as ''Blue Night, Yellow Roof'' (1991). In late September 2014 Downie set off for 3 months of travel in Australia and Japan, carrying out research of river systems, estuaries and bridges on the edge of the western

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. This culminated in a 2nd major solo exhibition with the Scottish Gallery ''Estuary'' in Edinburgh in April 2015. That same month also featured a two-person show ‘Drawing on the Landscape’ at Cobalt Contemporary in Pittenweem. Both shows were reviewed by the Times, The Scotsman and

Studio International ''Studio International'' is an international illustrated contemporary art magazine, formerly published in hard copy in London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both Engla ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Downie, Kate 1958 births Living people 20th-century Scottish painters 21st-century Scottish painters 20th-century Scottish women artists 21st-century Scottish women artists Presidents of the Society of Scottish Artists Royal Scottish Academicians Scottish women painters 20th-century women painters 21st-century American women painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century British women painters