“My heritage comes from a fishing and farming background, so painting the subjects I paint gives me a strong connection to my past. When I look at the fishing boats that I paint, they make me feel as though I could be standing on the beach or in the harbour in the early 1900s. The boats are timeless as is fishing, using the same traditional methods with the aid of a few new additions to their kit.” – Kate Batchelor

Lowestoft based artist Kate Batchelor paints the coastal scenes of her native East Anglia. Trained originally as a Wildlife Illustrator at Dyfed College of Art, South West Wales, Kate worked for many years as a freelance illustrator before eventually being seduced by the lure of painting.  Acrylics provide Kate with a pathway to express the beauty of the coast, her ties to it, as well as the joy she gets out of painting it.

Kate’s current work is based on boats; in particular, the more traditionally built fishing boats, which take Kate back to her roots. Kate often incorporates Gulls into her paintings, as when she was a child her father would get her to look up to the sky and show her the beauty of them flying overhead. To Kate, they are an intrinsic part of coastal life.

Photographs are property of the gallery and the artist.