Auto Poem

In her latest body of work Auto Poem, Kitty Horton explores the career techniques used continually throughout her oeuvre, using abstraction painting as a way of thinking—one that unfolds through doing, not planning. Working from familiar genres like landscape or interior, she uses them as quiet starting points for something more abstract and intuitive.

This body of work reflects the strange feeling of being on autopilot—both in the studio and in everyday life, specifically, going through the motions of balancing work/life and motherhood. The trinity requires finding seemingly endless stores of energy in deeply coveted reserves from those in the same boat, one that is increasingly requiring bailing water out from within it.

Kitty balances the mental load of the Big Three with a gentle, trance-like flow state in the studio by painting abstractly. Auto Poem holds itself together within the embrace of this balance. A tension, balancing saturated darks with soft pastels, rough marks with smooth waxed surfaces, always shifting between concealing and revealing.

Her materials—oil paint, oil stick, beeswax, tape—become tools that her body uses while her mind rests, revealing glimpses into a day in the life of a highly creative and sapped personal journey that while at once unique to Kitty, is also universally known and shared with others like her. The works reveal Kitty’s thread to contemporary painters such as Tony Tuckson, or Sally Gabori through not just gestural mark-making but also in composition and form. Influenced also by the Romantics and their connection to nature and spirit, there’s a quiet undercurrent of reflection in these works. The marks move between control and release, like thoughts half-formed, acknowledged through a visual language that is rife with personal reflection and symbolism, and outwardly saturated in colour and texture.

Auto Poem is a collection of time-stamped moments that is not an explanation, but a process of the daily experience of a painter in her mid-career with a lot on her mind. The successes, trials and the pits of a single day all equal out under the passive, automated process that allows her a semblance of catharsis, preparing her to level-up, ready for the next challenge.

About the Curator

Laura Brinin

Laura Brinin is a curator of contemporary art, currently facilitating the vibrant program at Side Gallery in the heart of Red Hill, Brisbane. With an unwavering passion for nurturing connections with emerging and established creatives, Laura is dedicated to fostering artistic growth through avenues such as social media, branding, and identity development.

Laura has exhibited her own work both in Australia and overseas, as well as working as an independent freelance curator across Brisbane for over ten years. In her downtime, you can find her reading, travelling, or stalking dogs.

—   laura@sidegallery.com.au