About Katherine

Katherine Hughes was raised in Tanzania, where she found her passion for all things wild and irreplaceable. Whilst she has since lived around the world — in South Africa, Paris, and now London — Katherine has never lost her connection with Tanzania or her love of the natural world.

Katherine’s connection to the earth plays a significant role in her artistic expression. This inevitably led to a painful awareness of the dramatic and troubling challenges that our last remaining wild spaces and creatures are facing.

While she was completing her arts degree and experimenting with her first oil paintings, Katherine also worked in the fashion industry in Paris and completed an arts degree in London. In both of these cities, despite her creative focus and friends, Katherine found herself in a world that encouraged and even enforced the hiding of imperfections and weaknesses. Whilst she wanted to create beautiful things, she was troubled by the idea that this had to mean turning away from vulnerability and imperfection.

Today, Katherine’s work ranges from oil paintings to sculptures, sketches, and even fashion and branding projects. She doesn’t believe in a singular definition of beauty or in limiting herself as an artist to one format, forum, or style. Katherine believes in the transformative power of making space for imperfections and vulnerability, and so her work tends towards bold sweeps and colours, as she leaves room for both error and imagination.

Although much of Katherine’s work is centred on conservation and the natural world, she is also inspired by her personal challenges with self-image, with what it means to be successful and/ or beautiful.

Katherine works with conservation charities and children’s charities, such as Space for Giants, Save the Rhino International, WWF and KidzCare to raise awareness and funds for vital conservation work in Africa. Much of her work depicts species that are fast becoming endangered or animals that could be easily removed from the endangered list with only a little extra support from humankind.

Katherine is also an avid lover of sustainable fashion and was dressed for her Space for Giants conservation trip by KoiBird.

VULNERABILITY LIBERATED

15th June 2023

Putney.