Kate Vassallo is an Australian visual artist of Maltese heritage, currently based on Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri Country (Canberra, Australia)

“powerful energies held within the geometric strictures of its tight triangles, provides a concentrated pictorial and tonal dynamism.”

- Peter Haynes

Artist Statement

When making artworks, my focus is setting the scene for something to happen in the studio. Using rules and parameters, I develop fully fleshed out “systems” of materially focused steps. Usually highly repetitious, these processes slowly unfold over time. 

Setting myself a structure to work within, I operate with discipline and concentration in the studio. This structured approach is visually echoed in the formal geometric shapes and straight lines. While the steps I set myself when making these works are preplanned and formulated, I always leave space for agency, intuition and chance to enter the fold. The composition and shapes that build up these works are dictated by chance, rather than control.

My artworks are a labour of love, spending highly focused time, along with mental and physical energy, building up their surfaces. This time and labour means I feel quite personally connected to my studio output, like a small piece of myself is imbedded in my works.

Using this abstract visual language and specific material qualities I have developed in the studio, I want to elicit soft sensations of light, space, time, memory and nostalgia. I am also interested in using abstraction to communicate visualisations of process, labour, control, chance, freedom and agency.

artist bio

Vassallo graduated from the Australian National University School of Art in 2010 with First Class Honours and a University Medal. She has since exhibited throughout Australia, including solo exhibitions at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, Galerie pompom (Sydney) and Canberra Contemporary Art Space, and group exhibitions at Canberra Museum and Gallery, PICA (Perth), Artbank and The Lock-Up (Newcastle). She has also exhibited regularly at established and respected artist run initiatives, like Firstdraft (Sydney), Blindside (Melbourne) and Bus Projects (Melbourne).

In 2023, Vassallo is embarking on her largest project to date having been commissioned by Major Projects Canberra to create an artwork for the Canberra Hospital Expansion. This painting-based project will be architecturally integrated into a range of wall spaces throughout the hospital, such as visitor waiting areas, patient bays, staff stations and corridors.

Kate Vassallo has been a finalist in numerous art prizes, including the Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize (2022), Jacaranda Acquisitive Art Award (2022), Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing (2021, 2022) and Ravenswood Australian Woman’s Art Prize (2017, 2021). In 2021, she was awarded the Local Artist Prize at the M16 Artspace Drawing Prize. In 2019, Vassallo won the Preparator’s Artist Residency Award, as well as Highly Commended for Early Career Artists, at the Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award. 

Her artworks are held in the Artbank and Goulburn Regional Gallery collections, as well as private collections throughout Australia and the USA.

Collaborative Practice

Vassallo also has a collaborative practice with fellow visual artist James Lieutenant. When collaborating, the pair focuses on large-scale, abstract, graphic wall paintings that respond to architectural spaces. They have exhibited at a number of institutions across Australia, including Artbank, Canberra Museum and Gallery, Bus Projects (Melbourne) and Canberra Contemporary Art Space, as well as working on private commissions and public art projects.