Kate Elsey
“In my paintings, I am depicting the cycle of life, the vital capillarity of our own circulatory system to that of nature. We need to nurture the environment that sustains us as we obviously share air, water and life.”
- Kate Elsey
Kate Elsey is a painter celebrated for her lyrical abstractions—rich, textural works where gestural colour and meditative mark-making trace an emotional connection to place. Working from her studio in outer Melbourne, surrounded by native flora and fauna, Elsey explores the relationship between the natural world and the poetic inner landscape.
With a sculptor’s sensibility, Elsey builds her paintings through a physical process of layering, scraping, and reworking oil pigment with a palette knife. This rhythmic practice allows form, texture, and colour to emerge intuitively, creating immersive compositions that suggest both memory and movement. “I’m trying to hold the feeling of a place,” she says, “its energy, not its image.”
Elsey has presented over twenty solo exhibitions across Australia and, in 2023, completed a major commission for The Ritz-Carlton Melbourne, creating a large-scale poetic landscape of the moonlit Birrarung Marr waterways. Through her work, she aims to reflect the primordial conditions of our planet by embedding the rhythms of nature and translating the universal language of our fragile environment—offering a contemplative space where connection to land, memory, and emotion quietly unfolds.
About the Artist
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Born 1969 in Perth. Lives and works in Sunbry, Victoria
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Selected Solo Exhibitions
2025
Embody, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA
Nature Script, Chapman & Bailey, Melbourne, VIC2024
Primal Highway, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA2023
Avian Musing, Linton and Kay Galleries, Margaret River, WA2022
Magic Carpet, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA2021
Unscripted, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA2020
Ink Meanderings, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA2019
Lexus Ball for Telethon, Perth Convention & Exhibition Centre, WA
Around Corners, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA2018
Earthlines, Linton and Kay Galleries, Perth, WA2016
Life Museum, Linton and Kay Galleries, Perth, WA2015
Banksia Mountain, Linton and Kay Galleries, Perth, WA2013
The Studio, Hotham Street Contemporary, Melbourne, VIC2012
Axia Modern Art, South Melbourne, VIC2011
Spectacular Bird Show, Gadfly Gallery, Perth, WA
Boundless, Axia Modern Art, Melbourne, VIC2009
Still Life, Axia Modern Art, Melbourne, VIC2003
Yellow, Code Red Art Gallery, Perth, WA2002
Voyage, Silver Room Art Gallery, Perth, WA2001
Inside, Gadfly Gallery, Perth, WA2000
Caternay and the Timpani, Gadfly Gallery, Perth, WA1998
Evolution and the Peach, Code Red Art Gallery, Perth, WA1997
Dust to Dust, Allegretta Studio and Gallery, Perth, WA
Seedy, His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, WA1994
Complicated Thought Simple Action, PS Gallery, Perth, WA1992
40 Paintings, The Claremont Hotel, Perth, WA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025
On the Edge, Linton and Kay Galleries, Cottesloe, WA
Variations on a Feathered Theme, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA
International Women’s Day, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA2024
On the Verge, Linton and Kay Galleries, Cottesloe, WA
Legacy of our Landscape, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA
Fragments of Nature, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA
Humphrey Homes, Linton and Kay Galleries, Cottesloe, WA
Cottesloe Unveiled, Linton and Kay Galleries, Cottesloe, WA
Brush & Beyond, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA
As the Leaves Turn, Linton and Kay Galleries, Cottesloe, WA
On the Waterfront, Linton and Kay Galleries, Cottesloe, WA2023
Light & Perception, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA
Works for Your Collection, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA
New Works & Favourites, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA
Women of the West, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA
Director’s Choice, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA2022
Make Your Mark, Linton and Kay Galleries, Mandoon Estate, WA
Summer Salon, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA2021
Eastaugh and Elsey – Introduction and Encore, Linton and Kay Galleries, Mandoon Estate, WA
Birds of a Feather, Linton and Kay Galleries, Mandoon Estate, WA
Summer at Subi, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA
Flametree Wines, Freshwater Bay Auction for Type 1 Family Centre, WA2020
Light and Shade, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA2019
Flametree Wines, Freshwater Bay Auction for Type 1 Family Centre, WA
Asthma Foundation Exhibition, with Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA2018
Water Above and Below, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA
50 x 50cm Summer Show, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA
Way Out West, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA
Summer Out West, Linton and Kay Galleries, West Perth, WA2017
Christmas Collection, Linton and Kay Galleries, Subiaco, WA
Women of Wildflowers, Linton and Kay Galleries, Mandoon Estate, Perth, WA2016
Selected Works, Linton and Kay Galleries, Mandoon Estate, Perth, WA2014
Directors Choice, Linton and Kay Galleries, Perth, WA2013
Ausimed Auction, Menzies Art Brands, Melbourne, VIC2011
Japan Exhibition, Axia Modern Art, Melbourne, VIC2010
Christmas Exhibition, Axia Modern Art, Melbourne, VIC2005
Women from the West, Challen’s Rafferty Gallery, Perth, WA2000
Mainly Miniatures, DADAA, Holmes à Court Gallery, Perth, WA1997
One World One Hope, WA AIDS Council, Perth, WA
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Collections
Kunstsammlung Neubrandenburg, Germany
The Copelouzos Family Art Museum, Athens
Macquarie Group Collection
Westpac Bank,
Dr Joseph Brown
BHP Ltd
BHP Petroleum
Albert Tucker Collection
BP Australia, 101 Collins Street
The Melbourne House, Greg Natale
RLD Kent Street Project
Cliff Top House –shortlisted 2015 Australian Interior Design Awards, Hare + Klein
The Melbourne House
Kirribilli Apartment –shortlisted 2015 Australian Interior Design Awards, Hare + Klein
Queens Riverside, Frasers Property Australia
Henley Properties Group
Westin Perth
Sheraton Melbourne
Four Points Sheraton, Central Park, Sydney
Audit Victoria
Nauru House
Grand Chancellor Hotel
Buxton’s at Southbank
kunstGUT Schmiedenfelde, Germany
Private collections in Australia, Germany, America, England, the Netherlands, Italy, Hong Kong CN, Singapore and Dubai UAE.
Awards
2020 Winner, The Paper Bag Award Show, Cross Gallery, Bundaberg, Qld.
2008 University of Ballarat, Research Travel Grant
2007–9 University of Ballarat Research Scholarship
2006 Ministry of Culture, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany (artist workshop)
1992 BP Australia Acquisitive Award
1991 Australia Council, Project Grant
1988 Pura Prize for work on paper, RMIT University
1987 Runner up, John Abdullah and William J. Conn Travelling Scholarship, RMIT University
Selected finalist Art Prizes
2019 The Bundaberg Art Prize, Bundaberg Qld.
2016 The 41st Rio Tinto Martin Hanson Memorial Award, Paper Section, Gladstone Regional Art Gallery
2015 Wyndham Art Prize
2013 Fleurieu Art Prize
2010 Tattersall’s Club Invitation Landscape Art Prize, Art Promotions Queensland
Williamstown Festival Contemporary Art Prize, curator Julie Collins, The Substation, Newport
2007 Kedumba Invitation Drawing Award, Wentworth Falls, NSW.
2006 Hatched 06, National Graduate Show, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA)
2005 Tattersall’s Landscape Art Prize, Art Promotions Queensland
2002 Fleurieu Art Prize & touring exhibition, Fleurieu Peninsula, SA.
1999 The Alice Prize, Alice Springs, NT.
1998 Fleurieu Art Prize, Fleurieu Peninsula, SA.
1997 Outback Art Prize, Broken Hill City Gallery, NSW.
1994 R. M. Ansett Art Award, City of Hamilton Art Gallery
1993 Diamond Valley Acquisitive Awards
1992 Diamond Valley Acquisitive Awards
1992 Artworkz Four, BP Acquisitive Art Awards at 101 Collins Street
1990 Diamond Valley Acquisitive Art Awards
Artworkz Two, BP Acquisitive Awards
1989 Artworkz One, BP Acquisitive Awards
1988 John Abdullah and William J. Conn Traveling Scholarship, RMIT Gallery, Storey Hall, RMIT University
1987 Mitchell College Union (National Student Art Prize) Bathurst
John Abdullah and William J. Conn Traveling Scholarship, Faculty Gallery, RMIT University
42 x 30cm