Katy Woodroffe

Katy Woodroffe

Lives and works in Launceston, Tasmania

Transformed by her encounters with Islamic art and architecture, Woodrooffe has produced exceptional bodies of work which seduce and inspire, and continue her lifelong obsession with pattern and print.

Katy Woodroffe studied at the Tasmanian School of Art in Hobart and Launceston where she completed her Master of Fine Art and Design in 1999. She currently combines her role as Director of the Poimena Visual Arts Centre and Gallery at the Launceston Church Grammar School with her passion for art making.

In 2001 she was invited to participate in a two month residency at the Cite des Arts in Paris by the University of Tasmania and this experience has been a major influence on the development of her art practice.

Since that time, Woodroffe has been featured in many successful solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. She has been a finalist in numerous prizes including the $15,000 Prometheus Art Exhibition in 2007 and 2009, the 2009 CPM National Print Awards, (in which she won the Highly Commended Award), the Stanthorpe and Williamstown Art Prize in 2008, the Glover and the City of Whyalla Prize in 2007 and the City of Hobart Art Prize and the Fremantle Print Award in 2006.  In 2008 she won the Premier's Choice Award in Women Tasmania's Material Girl 08 Competition, which is a prize she also won in 2006. In 2008 she was the winner of the 2008 Salamanca Collection Art Prize in Hobart. Her work was also featured in "Mapping the Island", a 10 Days on the Island 2009 Exhibition at the Henry Jones Art Hotel atrium in Hobart.

Since 2007, Woodroffe has exhibited in Amsterdam, Mojacar (Spain), Paris, Copenhagen, Shenzhen (China), Krakow (Poland),  Vancouver and Ottawa, Sofia (Bulgaria), Debrecen (Hungary), Bitola (Macedonia), Helsinki (Finland), Istanbul and Alexandria.

Adding to this impressive international acclaim, this year she was invited to the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts Residency in Greece and to the Makanne residency in Udaipur in India.  She will also hold a solo exhibition of new work at the Astry Gallery in Bulgaria before undertaking a research study tour of Istanbul.

Transformed by her encounters with Islamic art and architecture, Woodrooffe has produced exceptional bodies of work which seduce and inspire, and continue her lifelong obsession with pattern and print. Working largely with unique state prints, each delicate piece is created through individually painted stencils, and laboriously glazed with transparent red oxide.

Mesmerising, hypnotic imagery recalls the awe-inspiring Palaces in Udaipur, the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal, where mysterious rooms were frequented only by secluded women.  This feminine quality permeates each work, and repetitive patterns echo the exotic sensuality of Ancient Islam. These complex, iconic pieces explore an ongoing personal repertoire of feminist concerns: sexuality, re-generation, and isolation.