Kate Banazi
Artist's Statement
Kate Banazi’s practice is anchored in the human body; drawn from life, then pulled apart into fragments of line, limb and edge that shift, repeat and resist fixed meaning. The body moves through sketch, computer, photograph, screen and print, each layer adding distortion. Bright hues and hand-pulled silk screens carry the physical labour of the process, a tension between control and chaos that mirrors inhabiting a body itself. Her fascination with form began in her family’s fashion background – fabric draped over the body, colour and pattern drawn from her Indian heritage. For years the body dissolved into abstraction. It is now finding its way back: stretched, folded, tangled, proportions chaotic, limbs misbehaving. Across acrylic, paper and light works, Banazi holds tenderness against fury, beauty against the grotesque, without choosing between them. She subverts the expectation that women’s bodies exist to be ornamental, exposing flesh and desire through graphic folds, lips and structure – a study in autonomy, self-image and the rearrangement of identity.
Biography
Kate Banazi (b. 1970, London, UK) is a mixed-media artist known for her innovative approach to contemporary printmaking on unconventional materials. She graduated with a BA Honours from Central Saint Martins College London in 1994. Her work has been presented internationally and locally, including at the London and Milan Design Weeks, Australian Museum, Powerhouse, and Canberra Glassworks. Banazi’s practice extends into large-scale public art, including a light projection on the William Jolly Bridge for Brisbane Art Outside, a 30-metre sculpture on Parkside’s façade in Macquarie Park and a sculpture installation at Brookfield Place, Sydney. She has been a finalist for the Burnie Printmaking Prize (2025), John Glover Landscape Prize (2025, 2026), Fisher’s Ghost Art Award (2025, 2026), Pymble Art Award (2025) and Ravenswood Art Prize (2021). Her work has been published in Silkscreen Masters: Secrets of the World’s Top Screen Printers by Vetro Editions/Moleskine and Sketching Process by Skeehan Studio. She has been represented by Curatorial+Co. since 2015, with four solo exhibitions, two Sydney Contemporary showings, and a selection of work at ART SG 2027.
