KATE WALTERS: DRAWINGS BORN IN ITALY
Kate Walters’ latest series of drawings began in the wilds of the Abruzzo National Park in Italy, where she undertook an artist residency in August 24
Inspired by the landscape’s ancient beauty and raw vitality, she worked directly with natural materials gathered from the forest floor.
Using fallen oak galls crushed between rocks to make ink, and porcupine quills found along woodland paths as pens, Walters created a body of work deeply rooted in place. The resulting drawings explore themes of wildness, occupation, and resolution, reflecting the forest’s layered histories, from its natural rhythms to traces of human conflict.
“The mountainous woods are immense, ancient, and beautiful,” says Walters. “Wild boar, oak and chestnut trees, wolves and bears make this place their home. It was a landscape both nurturing and haunting with its history close beneath the surface.”
Drawings born in Italy presents these sequences of oak gall ink drawings, each one an intimate response to the forest’s spirit and memory.
