LOS ANGELES, CA.- Kohn Gallery announced the representation of the Los Angeles-based painter and multimedia artist Kate Barbee. This February, Barbee debuted her first solo exhibition, Feral Flora, at Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibition is currently on view through March 25, 2021

Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Barbee makes forcefully expressive large-scale paintings, whose abundance of colors, gestures, abstract forms, and layers of mixed media converge in dream-like images of figures—mostly women—in domestic tableaux. At once intimately personal and yet evocative of universal experiences of emotion and connection, Barbee’s works are relational, environmental portraits that favor sensation over precision. She captures the moods, vulnerabilities, desires, and power struggles of her subjects, working with an open-ended, responsive process that calls to mind Expressionist forebears like Marc Chagall and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, all the while shot through a decidedly contemporary approach to form, process, and material.

Barbee’s process swings between pure intuition and intentionality as she refers to her extensive archive of collected images and personal snapshots, a testament to the enduring relevance of painting in order to make sense of the world we navigate—a call to see people, spaces, and our relationships with both in a new light, color, or form.

Kate Barbee lives and works in Los Angeles, CA receiving her BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX in 2017. Barbee has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Papercuts at Saatchi Gallery, London in 2018; Sweet Primal Things at James Wright Gallery, Los Angeles, CA in 2019; and myselves at Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA in 2020. Her work has been reviewed in numerous publications, including Harper’s Bazaar and Flaunt Magazine.