Kate Downie, RSA, was born in 1958 in America of British parentage, but returned to live in the North East of Scotland in early childhood. She studied Fine Art at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen.
She works in a range of media, including oil and acrylic painting, ink painting, collage, and printmaking. Her work has been exhibited extensively in the UK as well as in China, Australia, Norway, Holland, France, and the USA. She has received numerous awards and residency placements over her career and is represented in public and private collections worldwide.
In 2014, Downie was commissioned as an artist-in-residence at the Forth Road Bridge, to create an exhibition and work to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the bridge's construction. She studied ink painting and contemporary culture in China through many visits and residencies, including lessons in Chinese seal carving with a master calligrapher in Beijing in 2015. Solo touring exhibitions in Scotland, including 'Shared Vision' series and Great Wall prints, reflect the result of this prolonged relationship. Her continued exploration of human travel has been inspired by journeys through Australian river estuaries, Japanese train systems and American highways, and train journeys across Scotland.
