Kathryn Maple (b. 1989, Canterbury) is an artist specializing in drawing
and painting. Her large-scale paintings feature urban, suburban, and
rural landscapes which are frequently populated by human figures. Her
work is distinctive for its use of intensely layered mark making,
lending the work both urgency and intimacy. The places and people
depicted, rendered in a range of painting and drawing materials, are
frequently afforded a sense of wildness or mystery by dint of their
color palette, collage-like compositions, and recurring motifs such as
wind-blown trees and winding pathways.
This, her first monograph, features 379 images, many of which are
reproduced for the first time. These include the presentation of her
recent major series of oil pastel on paper works "A Year of Drawings",
alongside reproductions of her mixed media works on paper, as well as
large oils on canvas.
An essay by Kathryn Lloyd, writer, artist, and Contemporary Art Editor
at The Burlington Magazine, offers insight into Maple's impulse to
explore the world around her through her work. Large-scale paintings,
replete with dense layers of marks, are constructed by means of personal
encounter, memory, and imagination. Details of man-made objects, tree
bark, and human skin, for instance, become composite, crucial in
capturing fleeting experiences of place and of people. Lloyd brings out
the symbolism of Maple's work, making art historical comparisons while
connecting these to the specific local characteristics of Maple's
familiar South London landscapes and the importance of walking to the
artist's practice.
An interview with independent curator and critic Anneka French is
focused on "A Year of Drawings", a series of 365 drawings made daily
since January 2022 outside the artist's studio. They discuss the
process, materials, and art historical and literary influences upon
Maple's work, with a focus on how her drawing and painting strands of
work impact each other. Their conversation provides an insight into the
thinking of the artist at a crucial stage in Maple's career.
Taking its title from the lyrics of The Cure's A Forest (1980), Editor
Matt Price's essay "Into the Trees" offers an introduction to, and an
overview of, "A Year of Drawings", discussing examples of the works and
considering aspects of the series ranging from art historical precedents
to themes, recurring motifs, and interpretation.
The monograph is published to coincide with the exhibitions: Under a Hot
Sun, by Kathryn Maple, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 11 February - 30
April 2023 and Kathryn Maple: A Year of Drawings, Lyndsey Ingram
Gallery, London, 1-17 March 2023. It has been edited by Matt Price,
designed by Anomie Studio, printed by Mixam, Watford, and published by
Anomie, London.
