Kate McCrickard is a British painter living in Paris, France. She studied Fine art at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, obtaining first class honours in the double discipline of History of Art and Painting. Painting, drawing and printmaking are at the heart of her practice. She has mounted several solo exhibitions in London, New York, Belgium and Tai Pei with Art First Gallery, David Krut Projects, De Queeste Gallery and Ming Dian Gallery; she has also exhibited in the London Royal Academy renowned Summer Exhibition and the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh; Kate’s drypoint print ‘Ghosted’ was exhibited in the new acquisitions section of the British Museum, London, in October 2024. Previous projects included a curated solo display at the British Art Fair in September 2024 at the Saatchi Gallery, London with Julian Page Fine Art; Monomania at Atelier Michael Woolworth in Paris and a group exhibition with Galerie Huang Beli, Paris curated by Karen Tronel in March 2025.  Ming Dian Gallery, Tai Pei exhibited a solo stand of Kate’s works at Art Central Art Fair in Hong Kong in March 2025 and again at the Art 021 fair in Beijing in May. In November 2025, Kate exhibited in Folia, shown together with Paula Rego’s Prince Pig lithographs at De Queeste Art in Belgium. TellTale, a two-person show with Dasha Shishkin opened at Emanuel von Baeyer, London, on November 13th.

Three large paragonic canvases on the theme of the studio and making, are currently on display at Emanuel von Baeyer Gallery, London. Kate will be in conversation with art writer and curator, Phin Jennings on October 30th, 6pm.

Two large drypoints published by Michael Woolworth were displayed at the British Museum New Acquisitions evening on November 4th and will be on display at the new Paris/ Danube print salon opening in Paris on November 21st. New monotypes will be on show with David Krut NYC at the Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair, April 2026; a new 3-colour lithograph made with D&S Editions in Bergerac, France will also be hanging in Deborah Chaney and Stéphane Guilbaud’s booth. Julian Page Fine Art will exhibit some new mixed media monotypes made on Japanese paper at the LOPF in May 2026. Kate will also exhibit in the group show “Misfits” at Julian Page Fine Art, Chichester in June 2026.

Kate’s works belong to the collections of the British Museum; La Bibliothèque nationale de France; LACMA; New York Public Library; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Pallant House Gallery, UK; De Reede Museum, Antwerp; Royal Scottish Academy; Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Weslyean University Davison Collection, USA.

Kate served as juror on the no longer extant Art in Print journal’s Prix de Print and worked as a curator during her 7 years as director and programme coordinator at David Krut Projects NYC where she worked with artists William Kentridge, El Anatsui, Suzanne McClelland and Carrie Moyer. In 2010, she wrote a monograph on Kentridge for Tate Publishing, London. McCrickard was also a regular contributor to the journal Art in Print. Her work has been written up in the following publications:

The Brooklyn Rail, Penny Florence, Shoring up Silence, https://brooklynrail.org/2023/10/criticspage/Shoring-up-Silence-Embodied-Truth-and-Earthly-Being; Artnet: 18 Things You Should See During New York City’s Print week, 2017 ; Art in Print, Artist in Art in Print, The Alcohol Issue, Volume 7, Number 4, 2017; Wall Street International, Emergence of Creativity, November 2016; The Brooklyn Rail, Proenza, Mary: Reviews: True Monotypes, IPCNY. May 2015; The Jackdaw, Easel Notes, 2015; Craig Inskip, Yvonne: Walk to Free Art London, April 29th 2014, http://walktofreeartlondon.blogspot.fr/2014/04/281-peas-by-kate-mccrickard.html; Bindman, Catherine: Art in Print, Exhibitions review, 2013; Image featured in Frieze magazine review of La Forét Intérieure, Barry, Robert, 14/11/2013 http://www.frieze.com/shows/review/alexandra-grant/; Art in Print, Exhibition Review, Kid, 2013

Artist statement:

​​“It’s not a matter of painting life, it’s a matter of giving life to painting.”  Pierre Bonnard

I want to put the human exchange into paint: our quirks, our oddness, our differences. I paint figures on stages, performing on the canvas as I perform with the paint—at the table, on the bed, in my local betting bars, backstage in the theatre or in a forest.  They are observed from sketches made from life or historic paintings and sculpture; others are imagined or remembered. I see the world through art historical images and in each work, there is always a prompt, something recognised from art history. Some figures are dressed in contemporary clothing while others are dressed in clothes from centuries past. Some are naked, some are animals. Most are knotted or entangled in an enactment of our noisy modern lives. They are pressed into crowded urban spaces, ghosted or addicted to sociaI media, isolated within messy communities on the brink of folly. But some of these performers are also just lounging, draped over bars, flopped like Degas’ Absinthe Drinker (See Flamers) not really doing anything. They look at themselves being looked at, look at others inside their painted world and perhaps look out at us, beckoning us in.

I see these painted people as more than portraits—they are types, even tronies: the drinker, the smoker, a smoking child, peeping Tom, the punk, the lover, the goth. There’s nearly always a voyeur within the frame. I am interested in the slippage of observation into fiction, people that blend into types, real people, but also inventions.

I begin with an idea usually taken from an observational sketch and draw out a composition that gets pushed through many changes as I work through the image. The mark is quick and speed is important to bring liveliness to the surface and keep the eye roaming. I work and rework the canvas leading to slightly gnarly surfaces, like painted catacombs with many previous images buried underneath. The ‘grip’ that overworking and grappling out an image on a canvas brings represents a deliberate avoidance of super-realism, preciousness and the shiny surfaces that please Instagram, a need for something more concrete. Paint is an unfinished medium that lends itself well to my motley crew of odd characters, a display of human imperfection.

Selected Writin­­g

Drawing from Life on Via dei Seragli, catalogue essay for the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh on the occasion of John Kinross at 40 exhibition, 2020/21

The Bark and the Bite: Marcelle Hanselaar, catalogue essay for retrospective print exhibition at De Queeste Gallery, Belgium, 2020/21

New Editions Review: Rashid Johnson, Sean Scully, Jasper Johns, Teresita Fernandez, Dasha Shishkin, 2019, Art in Print.

Monotype Melody, Julie Mehretu and Tacita Dean, Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris, Art in Print, Exhibition Review, 2019

Mind the Gap, Please: The Watermark in Contemporary Printmaking, Art in Print, November 2018

An American in Paris, Review of Michael Woolworth retrospective, Centre de la Gravure et de l’Image Imprimée, Belgium, Art in Print, March 2017

William Kentridge, Drawing has its Own Memory, Art in Print, January 2017

Cécile Reims, Engraving for Herself and Others, Art in Print, July/ August 2016 

Details: Jacques de Bellange, The Madonna and Child with Distaff and an Angel, Art in Print, January 2016

The Distant North of Luc Tuymans, Exhibition Review: Suspended – L’Oeuvre Imprimé (1989-2014), Art in Print, July 2015

Djamel Tatah in the Atelier, Exhibition Review, Art in Print, July 2014

Hieronymus Cock: The Renaissance in Print, Paris, Institut Néerlandais, Exhibition Review, Art in Print, March 2014

Welcome to the Jungle: Violence Behind the Lines in three suites of prints by Dasha Shishkin, Art in Print, January 2014

William Kentridge: Fortuna, Thames and Hudson, 2013 (Lilian Tone)

Cécile Reims: A Plea for Print, Print Quarterly, January 2013

Microtate: Reflection on a Work from the Tate Collection, Tate Etc. magazine – Issue 26, Autumn 2012

William Kentridge Prints, Interview with the artist, Hayward Touring, 2012

William Kentridge, monograph, Tate Modern Artists, 2012

Eileen Cooper Showing Off, ‘Striptease’, Art First London, catalogue essay, 2011

Gary Schneider, Hand-Made Aesthetics, Art South Africa Quarterly, 2011

Santu Mofokeng, Eyes Wide Shut, Art South Africa Quarterly, 2011        

Nnenna Okore, Waste Management - Things Torn Apart, Art South Africa Quarterly, 2011

Gary Schneider, Private Parts: An Anthology of Fragments, 2011, David Krut Publishing, 2011

Paul Stopforth, ‘Exile on Main Street’, Taxi Art Books South Africa, 2009

William Kentridge Flute, ‘I am the Birdcatcher’, David Krut Publishing, 2007

El Anatsui, Asi, Interview with the artist, October Gallery, 2006