Kate Hudson

Printmaker

Kate is an Eltham artist specializing in limited edition linocuts in both colour and black & white. She uses native birds and flowers to make her highly patterned and decorative prints.
She trained as a textile designer at the Central School of Art & Design in London and worked freelance for 6 years before migrating to Australia in 1990 with her young family.
Kate became involved with her local Living & Learning Centre teaching a variety of art & craft subjects and rediscovered linocutting when asked to teach it. She started with cards and then moved on to larger prints.
She is primarily interested in the patterns and colours of the plants & birds she uses in her prints. She draws influence from Japanese woodblocks, Art Nouveau, the Arts & Crafts Movement and printmakers such as Margaret Preston.
Kate does all her drawing, designing and block carving in her Eltham studio and prints on an Albion press made in 1883.
In 2005 she was awarded an Australian Print Workshop Collie Print Trust Emerging Victorian Printmaker’s Scholarship. Her prints are part of many Public and Private collections both here and overseas.

Kate Hudson on her bird-print collection

When I came to live in Australia 28 years ago I wasn’t particularly interested in birds. I grew up in London with the Blackbird, the grey pigeon and the brown sparrow.
I was seduced by the brightness of the light here, the largeness of the skies and the rainbow colours of the parrots, it was all so exotic. My interest in bird watching had begun and I started to notice the quiet beauty of the smaller birds, the ones who are always there when you are out walking in the bush. You hear them and see their silhouettes against the sky and if you don’t make too much noise you might be lucky and have a close encounter with some of them.
I used to be quite strict about the birds I included in my prints, they had to have visited my garden. I got bored waiting for some of them to show up so I broadened the criteria to include my local neighbourhood and sometimes exercised artistic license when there was a bird I loved who would never be seen this far south.
In making my work I draw influence from the Arts & Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, Japanese woodblocks and my background in textile design. I made the round Owl series in response to the Hokusai exhibition at the NGV.