Kate Stevens West

B. 1982, Kāi Tahu, Pākehā

Distaff triptych - Mil; Kaeaea and Piharo; Isabella (2023), gesso, oil paint on canvas, 1670 x 580 mm $17 400

Holidays Work 2, 2023, oil on canvas, 440 x 360 mm $1800

Artist Biography

Painter Kate Stevens West (Kāi Tahu, Pākehā) was born in New York, in 1982. She studied at Otago University, and graduated with a Masters of Consumer and Applied Sciences in Design Studies. Stevens West lives to Ōtepoti Dunedin with her partner and four young children.

Stevens West paints family – the connections, the needs and emotions, intergenerational secrets and stories. She paints the everyday, including the messiness. She paints to give space in the world to those who may have been overlooked or forgotten. Objects play an important role in her practice. For Stevens West, material culture is a portal into another person’s life. Objects from museum collections, or from her mother’s childhood, allow Stevens West to connect with the stories of her whakapapa, and to tell these stories – stories of her family, stories of women, Ngāi Tahu specific stories – while making sense of her own life, both in a personal context, and in the wider context of New Zealand social history and feminism.

Stevens West has held solo shows and contributed to group shows throughout New Zealand. Notable exhibitions include Paemanu: Tauraka Toi – A Landing Place (2021-2022) at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, a group show with work from over 40 Ngāi Tahu artists, and Distaff (2023) at Bowen Galleries, a series of works exploring the relationship between Stevens West’s Māori whakapapa and her European and colonial ancestors. Her work is held in numerous public collections, including the Dunedin Public Art Gallery collection, and the Canterbury University collection, and in 2024, her work was shown with Paemanu Ngāi Tahu Contemporary Visual Arts at the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane. Recently, Stevens West contributed to Te Waiatatanga Mai o Te Atua – The Song of the Gods, a significant new permanent exhibition in the Observatory Tower at Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre, Christchurch. Te Waiatatanga Mai o Te Atua – The Song of the Gods is a project bringing together five Ngāi Tahu artists to tell the story of creation, as it was documented by Matiaha Tiramōrehu in 1849.

www.katestevenswest.com

Solo Exhibitions

Group Exhibitions