Kate Goff is a fine artist with the eye of a graphic designer.
At the intersection of fine and commercial art, digital and analogue, the present and the past her work is an embodiment of the liminal space.
Kate begins with photographs taken with a manual camera and black & white film. She then manipulates the image, adding the geometric shapes, colour casts and elements familiar to the design world.
View Kate’s works at Bivouac and get to know the artist…
Tell us about yourself and your practice as an artist.
I started out studying photography and visual arts, and eventually found my niche in my own style of photomedia art. This involved high contrast black and white photography mixed with graphics. I also studied graphic design briefly, and worked in the printing industry. This gave me the skills to create my own style photomedia art, a bit photography, a bit collage and a bit graphic design. I like to work with composition and contrast.
When/ how did you get into photography?
I started about 20 years ago, hard to believe it was so long ago! I finished my undergrad in Photomedia in 2003. I originally went to uni thinking I wanted to study film, but ended up crossing over into photography as I loved darkrooms and manually developing photo’s.
What is your favourite subject matter to shoot, where is the majority of your practice focused?
Peoples faces, negative space, working with the rule of thirds and composition.
Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Old black and white photographs, 70s - 80s print media
How did this collection come about?
In 2021 I began working with manual black and white film again, after being inspired by the native Australian wildflowers on Railway Parade in West Leederville near where I lived. I created a series of collage works such as ‘Purple: Melia Azedarach’ (currently on the walls of Bivouac). As well as this I started to concentrate on simpler, more traditional style black and white photography and digitally adding subtle tones of colour.
Is there a piece in the collection that holds special significance for you?
Plants, East Fremantle (Pink Cast) 2022
What other projects are you working on and what are you looking forward to in 2023?
Always working on more projects, always working on new art works for exhibitions. Getting back into manual black and white photography.