Katy Moran is British painter known for her compelling abstractions that explore form, colour and surface, enlisting a spectrum of mark-making in the expression of different atmospheres. While some of her paintings suggest traditional land or seascapes and conjure figurative associations, they are essentially records of the intangible and are deliberately engaged in sensation, as opposed to representation. Much of Moran’s inspiration comes from her transcendental meditation practice and ideas for paintings are incubated during these sessions. This connection with her unconscious allows for an intuitive approach that prioritises the autonomy of paint as a medium. Moran’s painting is process driven, following the nature of acrylic paint in experimental methods such as drips, pours and body painting. By allowing the nature of paint to inform the painting process, Moran is antithetically liberated from the bonds of materiality.
Moran’s paintings are by nature dichotomous, bringing together opposing forces in a single composition: fullness and space, simplicity and complexity, control and abandon. Moran has often worked with found, framed paintings used as the starting point of her compositions. Her layered approach relates to that of a palimpsest, reworking the existing forms with a thorough investigation of the limits of paint. Where the readymade has previously played a central role in her work, the artist has recently set aside the found, framed paintings she used as supports in favour of larger canvases that allow her to work at scale. A sense of artistic freedom characterises these new paintings, which unite the raw, fresh energy of splattered paint with thickets of dense mark making, and translucent washes of colour.