ideas
Go Ahead and: Paintings by Kate Van Steenhuyse
Somewhere Works, Wichita KS
June & July 2025
My paintings are mini playgrounds to practice discovery. I have always been fascinated by the relationships and systems (road maps, constellations, root systems, particle accelerator reactions, biodiversity, etc) which, layer upon overlapping layer, create our world. How do we make sense of this vastness enough to have any agency within it? Over the years, through my artistic exploration and professional endeavors, this interest has expanded from painting to nonprofit development and management, program and policy design, study of behavioral economics, arts-driven community development, and futures foresight strategies and facilitation.
Painting continuously teaches me to approach working with systems through playful curiosity. Our brains are wired to draw conclusions and decide what is what. Uncertainty is usually uncomfortable. It can also be so much fun.
My paintings tease viewers with opportunities to not have a conclusion, but rather to be present with an experience. How often can we just be immersed in the process of trying (and hopefully failing) to make sense? Agency is created when we embrace possibility and potential within uncertainty. If we can prolong judgment and sense-making within the paintings, we can also apply that approach to bigger, more complex ideas of systems change and societal impact.
Big thanks to Midtopia & Harvester Arts for the opportunity to show this new work!