Kate Downie
April 17th, 2026

Spring News 2026

From Penzance to Gairloch

‘Invergowrie’, Ink and watercolour on xuan paper

I have a busy year coming up, so wherever you are in the UK, my work will never be far away!

Read on to see what you can look out for, with the main event this year being my solo show ‘Grasslands’ at The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh Arts Festival programme, as well as many exciting group exhibitions along the way. Thank you for supporting and following me all these years, I’m excited to be showing brand new work for the first time in a while.

 

 

Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art

This is a touring exhibition celebrating 50 women artists from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, where you can see my work Span in a unique collaboration between Penlee House Gallery and Museum (30th April- 27th Sep), Worcester City Gallery & Museum (January 2027)  and Kirkcaldy Galleries (June 2027). This lithographic print Span, was based on one of my early FRB drawings and was editioned at Edinburgh Printmakers in 2001.

 

 

Grasslands

The Scottish Gallery will be presenting this exhibition of my work as part of the Edinburgh Arts Festival, the culmination of three years of research.

“Grass is everywhere, its roots binding the land together. It grows in cracks in the pavement, in broken gutters of houses. It covers vast lands, clothes the moors and mountains. It edges our motorways and pathways, and lies down short, shorn and polite as turf for the games people play – in baseball, football, golf, horse racing. So central and botanically vital, but also just there.”

As a teenager, inspired by Durer’s Das Große Rasenstück 1503 (The Great Piece of Turf) I have always loved to draw the ordinary, the overlooked, the ‘undrawable’ in search of a language to transcend the familiar.

 

 

Works on Paper: Art and Energy

I am delighted to have been commissioned this winter to create new large-scale drawing for the Aberdeen Art Gallery, for their Art and Energy Display. Here I am giving a short talk about the new work, which was researched in the depth of winter in Aberdeen, looking at the subject of Energy Transition though Wind and Water power. This new work is part of an excellent historical collection starting with Fay Godwin’s photography from the 1970’s through to the present day, including seminal works by Sue-Jane Taylor and Donald Addison.

This work is on display now until March 14th 2027.

 

 

RSA 200

Here are just some of the exhibitions where my work will be represented as part of the 200th anniversary of the Royal Scottish Academy, including the 200th annual exhibition at the RSA opening on the 9th of May to the 24th of June. Additionally a brand new etching for Chaos and Control: Printmaking in Scotland Now, 27th June to the 26th July.

Tides of Time. Final week to see Tides of Time at The Scottish Maritime Museum, closing on the 26th April. All details here on the poster.

 

 

Living Colour: Celebrating 200 years of the Royal Scottish Academy at St Andrews Museum from the 28th March – 5th September. Perversely I am showing a major drawing in black and white!

RSA Select at Gairloch Museum from the 5th September to the 25th October. I think this is going to be a great landscape exhibition alongside some of my favourite artists. I will be showing two of my Mull Apron watercolours (below) from 2021, touring up from the Scottish Maritime Museum. Gairloch is in a stunning corner of N-W Scotland and worth a visit!

 

 

 

 

June 1st, 2024

Summer 2024 News

Amongst the Trees

It’s a beautiful June morning on the edge of Summer: My Art life is busy but as the bees hum and the grasses grow long around Birchtree Studio this morning  its hard to see what the rush is!

I’m delighted to invite you to ‘Amongst the Trees’ at the Scottish Gallery where I will be launching a new suite of tree mono-prints amongst a veritable forest of excellent artists’ works exploring this infinitely fascinating  subject. I am especially excited to be exhibiting with my friend Andrea Geile whose magnificent corton steel sculptures will feature centre stage. This show is on all the way until July 27th

I will also be showing a two works in London  in ‘Beyond the Clouds’

Kate Downie Interactive Invitation

Here is one of my  new mono-prints, ‘The Glow Tree’ created on my Hawthorn Press at Birchtree Studio, featuring an ash, a maple and a Cherry tree. Thats a lot of trees in one sentence!

 

ArtMovesFife

What can I say about ArtMovesFife but that (so far) its a wonderful pilot project covering 6 months, funded by Creative Scotland which is pulling together an amazing number of diverse Fife-based artists  in conversation about our climate crisis through  slow journeys and art actions/workshops along the way.. Want to join in, go on the mailing list, be a community participant ? Please explore the website and sign up! Or just enjoy the journeys by reading our blog.

Yesterday we completed ArtMove journey 2A with ten artists, – a combination  of train journey ( the maiden voyage from Kirkcaldy to Leven re-opened branch line – direct line Edinburgh to Levenmouth Bay!) and walking/paddling the coastal path to Lower Largo.

Here we are picnicking in the sublime walled garden of Silverburn Park, soon to be adjacent to a community  artists & makers community by 2026, already a hub of community activity in nature.

 

 

Dead or Alive (Conversations with Joan)

This painting was co-created with  the input of 11 local children, was inspired by/ is a follow on from  my earlier painting project Four Children 1962-2022, after Joan Eardley.

It can currently be seen in the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh until June 16th, along  with 10 galleries full of great work by living artists from Scotland.

However, if you miss it, you’ll be able to catch it as the centrepiece of my forthcoming show at Glasgow Woman’s Library from September 2024-January 2025-

Much more about this in my next newsletter.

Have a wonderful summer!

Kate