Kathrin Longhurst’s visual language is entwined with her own journey as a child. Growing up in East Germany during the cold-war era, Kathrin experienced what life was like living with the iron-curtain. The contrast between war-propaganda imagery and promises of glamour ‘on the other side of the wall’ have long been the inspirations of her works.
Kathrin Longhurst’s visual language is entwined with her own journey as a child. Growing up in East Germany during the cold-war era, Kathrin experienced what life was like living with the iron-curtain. The contrast between war-propaganda imagery and promises of glamour ‘on the other side of the wall’ have long been the inspirations of her works.
A classically trained figurative painter, Kathrin began attending life drawing classes at the age of fourteen before relocating with her family to Sweden. Throughout her painting career, Kathrin has challenged the traditional war propaganda aesthetics with her flying female warriors in place of traditional, fearsome male figures.
Kathrin has a passion for exploring the concepts of feminine spirit, freedom of speech and expression. Her works aim to bend the visual paradigm of men and women at war. Longhurst’s initial approach is self-observational, but hopes her works inspire a shift in the history of empowerment and a gender-equal future.
A well-respected member of the Sydney arts community, Kathrin has served as Vice President of Portrait Artists Australia for some years. She is also the founder and Director of the innovative Project 504, an art space that fosters collaboration between emerging and established Australian artists.
In 2021 Kathrin achieves her 18th solo show, with her works widely collected in public and private collections in Australia and Internationally. Kathrin is a highly awarded painter with her recent accolades as the Archibald Packing Room Prize for the Archibald Prize in 2021, and finalist in the Archibald Prize 2018.
Kathrin has also been a finalist in many prestigious painting Prizes including The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Darling Portrait Prize National Portrait Gallery, Sulman Prize, Mosman Art Prize, Percival Portrait Award, Portia Geach Award, Shirley Hannan National Portrait Prize, and the Western Australia Black Swan Prize for Portraiture.
