Presented within this online exhibition are paintings from the artist’s 2021-22 creative output. These materially focused paintings look at abstract ways to consider light, colour, depth and nostalgia. Repetitiously and ritualistically built up slowly with thin layers of paint, these artworks aim to imbed a sense of time, memory and labour into their surfaces.

Designing materially driven systems as a methodology to produce artworks, Vassallo combines rules, repetitious labour and serendipitous material textures when making artworks. Equal parts chance and conscious decision-making in the studio, rules dictate the composition, colours and density of her abstract artworks. While making, the artist considers the ambiguous nostalgic associations that her artworks can connect with and hopes that viewers will draw their own associations to this, prompted by the material qualities.

Kate Vassallo’s work can be found in numerous significant collections including the Artbank, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, Ovolo Group (Hong Kong and Australia), Private collections throughout Australia and the USA. She has also been shortlisted in numerous prestigious art prizes including: the Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award, the  Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing, the Goulburn Art Award, the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, and the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize.

Kate Vassallo also has a collaborative practice with fellow visual artist James Lieutenant. When collaborating, the pair focuses on large-scale, abstract, graphic wall paintings that respond to architectural spaces. They have exhibited at a number of institutions across Australia, including Artbank, Canberra Museum and Gallery, Bus Projects (Melbourne) and Canberra Contemporary Art Space, as well as working on private commissions and public art projects.