Kate Gottgens is a Cape Town-based figurative painter whose work is distinguished by its moody, atmospheric quality and its psychological intensity. Her canvases — often depicting solitary figures in ambiguous, liminal spaces — oscillate between menace and beauty, inviting readings that are simultaneously personal and political. Gottgens is regarded as one of the leading painters of her generation in South Africa, and her Ampersand Fellowship in New York provided a productive period of international dialogue and new work at a key moment in her development.
The Ampersand Fellowship
Since 1997, the Ampersand Foundation has sent more than 300 South African visual artists to a funded residency in Tribeca, New York — connecting them with one of the world's most dynamic art ecosystems.