Above: Kathy Mack, Crepuscular Haze, 2022. Oil and wax on canvas, 40 x 50cm.
Though only graduating from the Queensland College of Art at Griffith University, Brisbane two years ago, Croatian-born Brisbane-based artist Kathy Mack has been exhibiting her hauntingly beautiful paintings for over a decade. Bathed in a sense of un-reality, the artist’s dreamscapes are an ongoing engagement with the idea of ‘the threshold’ of reality, using deft mark-making and planes of colour to create landscapes that exist on the edge of the known, and utilising wax to create distorted fields of view. This approach is informed by her experience transitioning from culture to culture and country to country, existing on the threshold of each. Mack’s academic journey has been marked by excellence, having graduated with First Class honours and been presented with the 2022 Griffith Award for Academic Excellence. Additionally, the artist has exhibited regularly across Queensland, having had her works presented at POP Gallery at Griffith University; Grey St Gallery and Project Gallery at Queensland College of Art; Side Gallery and Showarts Gallery in Brisbane; Lmtdspace on the Gold Coast, and at the Drawing International Brisbane Symposium at QCA Southbank.