Threads of Legacy: Grief, Music, and Colour

Kate is an artist whose interdisciplinary practice combines typography, painting, and expressive mark-making to explore connection, memory, and emotional healing. Her upcoming exhibition reflects on the loss of her father, using art as a way to process grief and keep his presence alive through colour, music, and thread.

Threads of Legacy features six large canvases, each combining hand-stitched imagery of her father’s hands with bold abstract painting. The stitched elements speak to the pain he carried, while the painted sections respond directly to the music he shared with her, hours of eclectic playlists that now serve as an emotional bridge.

Music plays a central role in the work. Throughout the exhibition, her father’s playlists will fill the space, creating an immersive environment where sound, colour, and memory come together. The rhythm and tone of each track have shaped the brushwork and energy of the paintings, turning loss into movement and expression.

There’s a contrast in pace that runs through the work: the slow, meditative act of stitching invites her to sit with grief, while the fast, expressive painting becomes a way to let it go. In this rhythm of holding on and releasing, grief becomes a transformative force.

Thread physically connects the six canvases, each representing one of the children her father left behind. These stitched lines act as a quiet symbol of the bonds between siblings, a visual thread between past and present. As an installation, the exhibition invites visitors to move through it, creating space for reflection, feeling, and connection.