Meet

Kate Roebuck

Kate Roebuck sits down with us to chat about her background in textile design and why nature informs her work.

Where are you from and where do you reside?

I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA. After almost a decade spent in Athens, GA and Oxford, MS I now live in Chattanooga, TN with my husband, kitty, and son.

What led you to choose ink as a medium for this series?

I trained and worked as a textile designer for several years before deciding to pursue a full-time fine art career. A lot of my work is based upon the foundations of textile design pattern, motif, line, layers, etc. Ink and gouache are the primary mediums for textile design, so for me, ink is a total no brainer - it’s like slipping into cozy slippers to get started, it just feels right!

Artist Kate Roebuck wearing a white dress and holding a paintbrush in her light-filled studio.

Artist Kate Roebuck arranging twigs and leaves on a piece of paper in her studio.

What necessities do you require when making your art (radio, specific paintbrushes)?

My studio has great light, so I love starting my days early with something easy to listen to playing in the background - Spotify, NPR, Blogotheque, or Radiolab. I try to minimize outside distraction during the day, so limiting my time on the computer or phone is important on days I am painting. I end each day by cleaning up my space and laying a new sheet of paper on my desk to start tomorrow with! For me, so much of being an artist is about the ritual and habits that make being creative as easy as possible.

I use the classical themes of color and line to create open-ended visual dialogue and to shed light on the ever-evolving relationship between the creator and the created.
Kate Roebuck

How do the different elements of color and line come together during your artistic process and how do you view their different functions within a work?

I view my work as a synthesis of the world around me. I use the classical themes of color and line to create open-ended visual dialogue and to shed light on the ever-evolving relationship between the creator and the created. These two themes work in tangent, much like a conversation never blossoms when it is one-sided.

Have you always drawn inspiration from nature, or has that focus developed recently?

Nature has always been a part of my bigger picture. As an artist, my desire is to mimic nature and in doing so step away from the mechanical and toward the hand. Nature, the original masterpiece, provides the inspiration. I seek to develop work that is dynamic, pushing past the mimicry to create a new story.