Biography

Kate Lewis, born in 1988, is a Johannesburg-born South African painter. She completed a BA in Fine Art at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2010, and is currently studying towards an MA in Fine Art to be completed in February 2013. She lives and works in Johannesburg.

Artist Statement

"In my paintings I deal mainly with urban scenes in a South African context, and a lot of my images are sourced from Johannesburg's CBD (Central Business District), although occasionally I paint from photographs I have taken from beyond this area. The buildings or urban scenes I paint rarely contain images of people, and seem as if they are images of an apocalyptic time. This strange contrast between the buildings, symbols of human activity, and the absence of life around them, is a bizarre characteristic of Johannesburg's urban landscape which I am constantly trying to capture in my work. The scenes I paint are also often of buildings which are often out of place in their environment, relics of colonialism which are being overpowered by the surrounding conglomeration of more recent architecture. What I try to do in my work is more than just capture urban scenes around Johannesburg, but also to convey some of their loneliness, isolation and nostalgia. I hope that my paintings capture the sense that our buildings, and along with it our history, are slowly dissolving and falling into disuse as we increasingly abandon and neglect these areas."