Kathryn Carter, New Zealand artist, is interested in painting the effects of light on landscape.
The New Zealand Landscape is constantly changing with many seasons occurring in a day, and therefore the constant change provides continuous variation in the visual field. She paints in Northland and Auckland and images of Matapouri Bay and the Poor Knights Islands reoccur in her work although the paintings are not always tied to a literal view of the Northland or island landscapes and seascapes. They provide a departure point for an investigation into perceptual experience of seeing .
As the light changes so does perception of what we see. What the land looks like in the morning may be quite different in the middle of the day or the evening. It is the same place but it has changed.
The journey through the day reflects the change that occurs through time and therefore in perception, so the painting of these landscapes represents a desire in the artist to capture the passage of time and the transient nature of light as a metaphor for the fragility of life.
Kathryn paints in inks on archival paper and in oils on board. Both media capture different aspects of the landscape, the oils possessing more solid form, the inks more transparent and delicate.