Kate Kozul is a 19 year old artist from Melbourne, Australia who specializes in painting. Kozul utilizes a mixture of Expressionism and abstraction in her work, and utilizes elements from her external environment and personal experience. Kozul focuses on socio-political ideas from the perspective of a young emerging artist. As an emerging artist, Kozul has a young perspective and aims her work at the Millennial experience. Kozul also experiments with drawing and sculpting, but keeps a fairly consistent style throughout her work.
Her work varies on various factors such as current events, and cultural, social, and political elements of society. Kozul’s work is multifaceted, and invites the viewer to engage and interpret their own meaning. Many of her works are deliberately controversial in nature, and involves points of interest such as political figures and historical events, in order to create discussion. She is detail-oriented, with each of her works symbolizing the details of a bigger picture or meaning.
Check out Kozul’s work below and be sure to read our interview with her that follows.
Artwork
Interview
How long have you been making art?
I’ve been drawing ever since I was a kid, but I’ve only been painting for about two years. I’ve always loved everything creative.
What made you want to make that transition from drawing to painting?
I’ve always loved painting more than drawing, but I had a little bit of a fear of painting for a while – thinking i wasn’t good enough for it yet and wasn’t skilled enough to transition into painting. It happened very randomly one day in class – I just grabbed some oil paints and canvas and just started painting swirls and from there I fell in love. I still draw, but I mainly paint now.
Do you hope to paint as your profession? Or do you have other plans for the future?
Yes, 100%. I don’t see myself doing anything else but painting. I would just love to have my own rented studio one day and just paint all fucking day – that’s the dream.
What inspires your work? And how would you describe your style, if possible?
Honestly everything and anything inspires me. There’s not one thing, one person or object that inspires me the most. I like everything. My style has grown so much even in the past year, I’m not sure how to describe it. Some say it’s very expressionist or surrealist – I just say it’s me. I feel like my works are just my inner representations of me and my personality. My works are my manifesto.
Do you spend long periods of time on pieces or do you work quickly? Or does it vary from piece to piece?
It depends on my work. If I am fully immersed in the idea I have I’ll go “ham” on the painting. I can work 10+ hours sometimes depending how invested I am. Not sure how good of a habit that is, but I kinda just do it. I don’t really pay attention, I kinda just do it because I feel like it…but if I’m in art block, I don’t force myself to finish any paintings because I don’t have the motivation or energy to. Sometimes it’ll take two weeks or even just a day. The longest I’ll spend on a painting is six months if it’s something major, but I get bored pretty quickly and personally I need to keep painting just to keep myself sane.
How do you plan on working toward your goal of painting professionally?
I hope to keep having exhibitions and I would love to have a solo show one day and just work my way up. I guess just work hard.
Do you have a favorite work of yours? If so, which piece is it?
Currently, yes, I’m working on a painting at the moment that I’m loving but can’t show it yet!
Follow Kate on Instagram.