Meet Kat — The Artist Behind The Gele Painter
Kat is The Gele Painter, creating stunning and timeless portraits of women adorned in their African gele for any interior space.
Her approach to her work centres on memories of her childhood spent in Lagos, Nigeria. When she was younger, she observed the way life is celebrated through a statement piece of head dress, known in Yoruba as the gele.
Kat chooses to champion the African head dress through mixed media portraits of women. Through a method of deconstruction, abstraction and re-composition, the gele head dresses that she depicts are reconstituted in colourful fabric, typical of West African attire. The faces of her muses are colourfully depicted in oil paints.
Kat’s first love is painting and she excelled in her teenage years at secondary school as a budding artist. She went onto train in Architecture at the University of Cambridge and worked in the profession for many years before returning to the passion that has always brought her joy – painting.
Now with over 20 years’ experience of painting, Kat has found her calling. Crafting the fluidity of oil paints and the texture of material – yes, real ankara or aso oke fabric! – to make unique masterpieces, she hopes that everyone (buyer or observer) will treasure her bespoke masterpieces, keepsakes for families for generations to come.
Find your masterpiece on her SHOP page.
The Gele Painter 