About Kate Cox

Kate Cox is a contemporary painter based in Kerikeri, New Zealand. Born in Auckland in 1974, she is known for large-scale gestural abstract paintings distinguished by dynamic movement, playful linearity and richly layered surfaces.

Working with acrylic paint, oil sticks, oil pastel, chalk pastel, acrylic ink and graphite pencil, Cox paints on unstretched canvas before stretching the finished works. This process gives her the physical freedom to move intuitively while maintaining careful compositional control.

Her practice explores how instinctive mark-making can give form to personal experience. Themes of solitude, resilience and belonging emerge alongside references to landscape, family heritage and the planting of new roots. Energetic gestures meet moments of quiet contemplation, with colour moving between vibrant, saturated compositions and subtle, muted tones in response to the rhythm of each work.

Cox has exhibited in solo and group shows in New Zealand and Australia, with paintings held in collections in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. She has been a finalist in the Walker and Hall Waiheke Art Awards and the Estuary Art and Ecology Awards.

Browse Kate Cox’s available paintings below, or enquire about a piece.

Artist statement

Painting is an intuitive act of translation. My practice is driven by heightened perception and an ongoing curiosity about how emotion, memory, and lived experience can be transformed into abstract visual language. I am drawn to the space between what is revealed and what remains concealed, where painting becomes less about explanation and more about discovery. It is a process of navigating uncertainty through instinct, allowing the work to evolve beyond conscious control.

A conversation, encounter, or passing emotion can cling to me long after the moment has passed, travelling through my body and into the brush before settling on the canvas. Through expansive gestures, playful mark-making, layered surfaces, and shifting colour palettes, I translate these experiences into paintings that reflect an evolving inner landscape. Working on large-scale unstretched canvas gives me the physical freedom to move intuitively, where the energy of the body becomes inseparable from the act of painting. References to landscape, family heritage, and the planting of new roots emerge naturally within this process, grounding abstraction in personal experience without illustrating it directly.

Painting is both an act of vulnerability and a search for connection. By trusting intuition and embracing the unpredictable nature of abstraction, I create spaces where viewers are invited to bring their own memories and emotions to the work. Rather than offering fixed narratives, my paintings seek moments of recognition, where resilience, curiosity, and authenticity can be quietly shared.

Exhibitions & events

MINI | Group show | 21 November 2025
Emerging Women in Art | Artist talk | 2025
Simultaneously Present | Capsule collection | 21 September–5 October 2024