For me, the impulse with painting is to discover and recontextualize. My process involves dislocating old imagery—often taken from photos—removing them from their original context, time, and meaning, and finding new ways to compose and reconfigure until a new story emerges.
In Kate Gottgens’ paintings, light and shadow dissolve into each other, forming liminal spaces that hover between memory and dream. Figures emerge and recede, absorbed by their surroundings, their presence both familiar and elusive. Glowing pools, dense forests, and hazy suburban scenes unfold in compositions that feel at once cinematic and deeply personal—anchored in specific imagery yet resisting clear narratives. Gottgens constructs her works from fragments: found photographs, digital ephemera, and personal snapshots, stripping them of their original contexts to create a language entirely her own.
Her paintings engage with the tension between beauty and unease, layering atmospheric veils...
Echoes of Her
12.06 - 30.08.2025Gallery | BrusselsDarkening Dusk
Kate Gottgens12.04 - 25.05.2025Gallery | Knokke KustlaanPublic Opening April 12, 2025, 11 am – 7 pm Kustlaan 90, Knokke 8300 MARUANI MERCIER is proud to present Darkening Dusk , the inaugural solo exhibition of South African...Read more
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