Kathrin Longhurst

Artist Statement

"My visual language collides with the starting point of my own journey. I was a child of the cold-war era, who had been to both sides of the iron-curtain. The contrast between war-propaganda imagery and glamorous promises on the other side of the wall were the inspirations of my early works. I reconsidered war propaganda aesthetics with ‘flying’ female warriors, in place of fearsome male figures of power. My early works aim to bend the visual paradigm of men and women at war as influenced by the patriarchal power structures of the past. My initial approach is self-observational, rewriting the recent history to empower the idea of a gender-equal future."

Biography

A well-respected member of the arts community, Longhurst served as vice president for Portrait Artists Australia and was the founder and director of the innovative Project 504. She completed her 16th solo show in 2019 and has been a finalist in numerous awards including the Archibald Prize, the Doug Moran Portrait Award, the Darling Prize, the Sulman Prize, the Percival Portrait Award, the Mosman Art Prize, the Portia Geach Award, the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Prize and the WA Black Swan Prize. Longhurst’s work is shown in commercial galleries as well as public galleries and institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery Canberra, the Art Gallery of NSW, the European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona, the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, the S H Ervin Gallery, The Zhou B Art Centre and the Manly Museum and Art Gallery. Her work is collected widely in Australia and internationally.