Melbourne-based artist Kate Gorringe-Smith works in contemporary and traditional print media in 2D and 3D form and installation. Her art investigates our relationship with the environment: the threats we create vs our connectedness with it. Kate’s work often references migratory shorebirds to illustrate the environmental connections that link us individually and globally.
She is also concerned with issues of human migration, cultural diaspora and displacement, and notions of ‘home’. These themes are central to her three major projects The Flyway Print Exchange, From a Home to a Home: a Story of Migration and, most recently, The Overwintering Project: Mapping Sanctuary.
The Flyway Print Exchange aimed to celebrate and publicise the East-Asian Australasian Flyway – the route flown by Australia’s migratory shorebirds from their breeding ground in Alaska and Siberia to their overwintering grounds in Australia and New Zealand. Twenty artists from nine of the 23 Flyway countries made and exchanged original prints inspired by the Flyway. One of each print was also posted, unprotected, between artists along the Flyway to mirror the birds’ migratory route. The ‘travelled prints’, worn and torn, bear evidence of the journeys’ challenges. To date the project has raised over $16,000 for BirdLife Australia’s shorebird conservation projects. Since its inaugural exhibition at the 2014 Adelaide OzAsia festival, the Flyway Print Exchange has been viewed by over four thousand people in exhibitions in throughout Australia as well as in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia and New Zealand.
The Overwintering Project: Mapping Sanctuary was launched in 2017 and was exhibited for the first time in October 2018 at Moonah Art Centre, Hobart and from November to December at Wyndham Art Gallery in Werribee. Ongoing details of the project are available on the project website.
As with Kate's previous project, the Flyway Print Exchange, the Overwintering Project engages with other artists to raise public awareness of migratory shorebirds, our most endangered group of birds, and their habitat. The project is also designed to raise money for BirdLife Australia’s migratory shorebird conservation projects, and at the start of 2021 had raised $23,000 to this end. So far, over 250 artists from Australia and New Zealand have contributed over 300 original prints to the Overwintering Project Print Portfolio, while many other artists have held their own local Overwintering Project exhibitions. The Overwintering Project is a long-term project and all are welcome to join. If you are interested in more details on how to join, what exhibitions are coming up or how to hold an Overwintering Project exhibition please go to the Project website, theoverwinteringproject.com or email [email protected].
While working as a scientific editor for BirdLife Australia in the 1990s, Kate studied printmaking at RMIT. Kate has taken part in eight solo and numerous group exhibitions in Australia and overseas. Her work is held in national collections, and has featured in awards such as the 2015 Silk Cut Award for Linocut, the 2017 Manly Artists' Book Prize, the 2021 Burnie and Geelong Print Prizes and the Castlemaine Experimental Print Prize and the 2022 National Works on Paper Prize.
Below: Kate Gorringe-Smith, 2020, Homage to the Bee Tree, eco print with linocut and ink, 930 x 1220 mm. Finalist in the 2021 Burnie Print Prize. Acquired by Burnie Regional Art Gallery.
She is also concerned with issues of human migration, cultural diaspora and displacement, and notions of ‘home’. These themes are central to her three major projects The Flyway Print Exchange, From a Home to a Home: a Story of Migration and, most recently, The Overwintering Project: Mapping Sanctuary.
The Flyway Print Exchange aimed to celebrate and publicise the East-Asian Australasian Flyway – the route flown by Australia’s migratory shorebirds from their breeding ground in Alaska and Siberia to their overwintering grounds in Australia and New Zealand. Twenty artists from nine of the 23 Flyway countries made and exchanged original prints inspired by the Flyway. One of each print was also posted, unprotected, between artists along the Flyway to mirror the birds’ migratory route. The ‘travelled prints’, worn and torn, bear evidence of the journeys’ challenges. To date the project has raised over $16,000 for BirdLife Australia’s shorebird conservation projects. Since its inaugural exhibition at the 2014 Adelaide OzAsia festival, the Flyway Print Exchange has been viewed by over four thousand people in exhibitions in throughout Australia as well as in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia and New Zealand.
The Overwintering Project: Mapping Sanctuary was launched in 2017 and was exhibited for the first time in October 2018 at Moonah Art Centre, Hobart and from November to December at Wyndham Art Gallery in Werribee. Ongoing details of the project are available on the project website.
As with Kate's previous project, the Flyway Print Exchange, the Overwintering Project engages with other artists to raise public awareness of migratory shorebirds, our most endangered group of birds, and their habitat. The project is also designed to raise money for BirdLife Australia’s migratory shorebird conservation projects, and at the start of 2021 had raised $23,000 to this end. So far, over 250 artists from Australia and New Zealand have contributed over 300 original prints to the Overwintering Project Print Portfolio, while many other artists have held their own local Overwintering Project exhibitions. The Overwintering Project is a long-term project and all are welcome to join. If you are interested in more details on how to join, what exhibitions are coming up or how to hold an Overwintering Project exhibition please go to the Project website, theoverwinteringproject.com or email [email protected].
While working as a scientific editor for BirdLife Australia in the 1990s, Kate studied printmaking at RMIT. Kate has taken part in eight solo and numerous group exhibitions in Australia and overseas. Her work is held in national collections, and has featured in awards such as the 2015 Silk Cut Award for Linocut, the 2017 Manly Artists' Book Prize, the 2021 Burnie and Geelong Print Prizes and the Castlemaine Experimental Print Prize and the 2022 National Works on Paper Prize.
Below: Kate Gorringe-Smith, 2020, Homage to the Bee Tree, eco print with linocut and ink, 930 x 1220 mm. Finalist in the 2021 Burnie Print Prize. Acquired by Burnie Regional Art Gallery.
