b. 1976
on unceded ancestral lands of Duwamish and Coast Salish people
Kate Flückinger (Petty) is a process-driven expressionistic oil painter. She finds inspiration in the beauty of the natural world and in life cycles: organic matter and processes morphing dissolving and colors of decay, how these intersect and reflect emotional environments moments and entanglements and love and loss. She strives to convey a kind of meaningful chaos moxie presence and eternality.
I paint to see. To meditate, to be. To experiment with color, forms, non forms, brushwork, layering, text. To work with symbols and moods and moments.
Color is a primary muse as are untamed things - growing, moving, changing, forming, falling apart - processes in life and cycles and the unseen - structure, boundaries, lines, containment - fleeting or illusory - the liminal and ambiguous.
Liminality speaks to a spaciousness or muddied between - fuzzy, hazy, unclear, amorphous, hidden, blurred, buried, emergent - like waking from a dream.
Through abstracted forms, landscapes, flora, fauna, and figures - I seek to enter, depart, describe, live in and leave, each transitional space.
I was born in Seattle where I currently reside, though I grew up outside the city, at the edge of a county, between towns, in a somewhat rural yet not quite suburban undefined environment -liminal from the start. My first friends were tall douglas fir trees standing like guardians around our house above a lake. Just like today, I was moved by music, movement, water, light, color, the landscape, and creating.
Other treasured work includes a lifelong study/practice of ancient astrology — and volunteering in the state women’s prison where since 2007 I have provided confidential listening and emotional support to incarcerated people.
Painting and creating have been an anchor for me throughout life: a transformational practice to navigate change and grief. During covid I collected a percentage of sales from new work to support programs benefiting children of incarcerated moms. See that project here. Now in 2024 I created and facilitate a painting practice/project in the prison called PAINTING INSIDE OUT.