Kate Downie RSA - Printing Bridges 1999-2002: Ground Floor Gallery

Glasgow Print Studio is delighted to launch 'Study for Three Bridge Evening', a new publication by Kate Downie, presented here alongside a retrospective of her previous bridge prints. This new etching has been co-published at Glasgow Print Studio in collaboration with Master Printmaker, Stuart Duffin.

Kate Downie was born in America of British parentage, but returned to live in the North East of Scotland at the age of 7. She studied Fine Art at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen, graduating in 1980.

She has taken part in artists' residencies in the USA, Amsterdam, Paris, Corsica, Norway and China. During her career, Downie has established studios in places as diverse as a brewery, a maternity hospital, an oil rig and an island underneath the Forth Rail Bridge. Her ongoing relationship with the Forth Bridges was made manifest in 2014 when she was selected as official artist in residence for the Forth Road Bridge during its 50th Anniversary.

As President to the Society of Scottish Artists from 2004 to 2006, Downie co-curated contemporary visual art projects of international standing, including an exchange exhibition with Indian artists and the 'Bodyparts' live art Festival at the RSA in Edinburgh.

Image: Kate Downie and Stuart Duffin, Master Etcher, at Glasgow Print Studio workshop.

Like the Scottish Artists Joan Eardley and DY Cameron in the last century, Downie has spent the past 25 years exploring an artistic vision for both the extremes of a Scottish urban/industrial landscape and Scotland's coastal 'edge-scapes'. During lockdown she explored a more conceptual approach to the secret world of plants & trees over time, and how they impact on our lives.

Downie's work appears in many public and corporate collections worldwide. In 2005 the artist was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize, and in 2008 became a member of the Royal Scottish Academy. Until the end of 2021 Kate Downie was chair of Development for the RSA where she has recently been hosting a series of country-wide 'Live at the Academicians Studio' events via zoom. She has been a trustee for both Art in Healthcare and the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust in the past ten years.

Kate Downie has been represented by The Scottish Gallery for many years and has had several solo exhibitions there since 2007. In 2017, she created 'Anatomy of Haste' for the Edinburgh Festival exhibition, with this latest body of work showing a new direction inspired by her current surroundings but also as a personal response to nature in Lockdown. Kate lived and worked in Edinburgh for many years and relocated to Fife in 2018 where she now has a beautiful purpose-built studio.