Katie Gamb
“Earthly Paradise”
Opening Reception with the Artist; Saturday, September 30th, 2023, 6-8pm
Exhibition runs: September 30th – October 29th, 2023
Haven Gallery is honored to present US (Wisconsin) based artist Katie Gamb for her second solo show “Earthly Paradise”, at the gallery. “Earthly Paradise” will feature ten oil paintings highlighting the relationships and synchronicity of humans, animals and the natural landscape through all phases of life. Lush green botany, blue skies and pastel tendencies brighten and tantalize the viewer as themes of decay, death and life flourish through moments of joy and growth. Motifs of splendor and celebration find themselves accompanied by decay and deterioration ultimately serving as a reminder of the fleeting yet bright nature of life. Gamb’s works remind us to cherish all our moments and celebrate the beauty of all phases of life.
About Katie Gamb:
Katie Gamb is an illustrator living and painting in a small, cozy corner of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her love of narrative and the natural world informs her artwork, which is influenced by the fairy tales she immersed herself in as a shy, bookish child, as well as the forests she wandered growing up in the rural Midwest. She particularly enjoyed studying tiny worlds that often went unnoticed, creating backstories and personalities for the creatures she came across.
Since graduating from Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design with a BFA in Illustration, her work has been shown in galleries around the world, and resides in homes around the country. Although most of her time is spent drawing and painting, she still reads voraciously and wanders among the trees whenever she gets the chance.
Exhibition Statement:
I landed on the title Earthly Paradise before any of the paintings were developed. It comes from French author Colette’s autobiography, and immediately jumped out as the title I wanted to use. It embodies a dichotomy that I wanted to explore- the necessary pursuit of joy in the midst of the bombardment of Earthly concerns. Things like cruelty, mortality, etc. that eat away at us day by day, without relenting. Not the pursuit of perfection, but the acceptance of reality, and cultivation of a life in spite of these things, because there’s no avoiding them. (As someone with escapist tendencies, this can be a difficult task.) But I’ve been drawn to this theme for a long time, and felt it was the thread that could connect this body of work.
