About

Kate Aughey b.1984

After a childhood spent drawing animals, beachcombing and making, Kate Aughey graduated from Kingston University with a BA in Fine Art in 2006, going on to complete an MA in illustration at Camberwell College of Art in 2009. After several years working as an illustrator and arts facilitator, Kate retrained as a museum Conservator, working for institutions including the Science Museum, National Trust and Natural History Museum, Oxford. 

Kate’s mixed media collages are rooted in nostalgia with visual threads of connection laid between our ancient past and the present. Themes and motifs recur like echoes of childhood when folktales and ritual allowed us to make sense of an uncertain world. Kate is drawn to animals as symbols and in particular snakes, whose symbolic duality represents both fear and death as well as fertility and rebirth. The influence of Kate’s work as a museum conservator can be seen in her use of vintage materials which embed their own histories in her imagined narratives. Kate explores the interplay between ease and discomfort through characters who are both uncanny and absurd.