Kate Black (b.1981, Walsall) is a British artist whose richly layered collages, prints and textile works transform the textures of everyday British life into vivid, theatrical narratives. Based in Malton, North Yorkshire, Black draws inspiration from antiques, museum collections, folk art and social history, creating immersive worlds populated by eccentric characters, domestic rituals and treasured objects.
Black studied Fine Art at the University of Wales, Cardiff (1999–2002) before completing an MFA at the University of Leeds (2009–2011). Her practice combines collage, drawing, printmaking and found materials, often incorporating vintage paper ephemera, matchboxes, packaging and hand-painted surfaces. Working intuitively, she pieces together imagined scenes inspired by the visual culture of market towns, chapel halls, bakeries, butchers and family-run shops, blurring the boundaries between memory, storytelling and social observation.
A regular visitor to Beamish Museum and The Black Country Living Museum, Black is fascinated by spaces where history feels tangible and alive. Victorian kitchens, vintage signage, tea rooms and domestic interiors become stages upon which her characters perform the rituals of daily life. Her compositions are informed as much by British Folk Art and quilting traditions as by Mughal painting, combining flattened perspectives, intricate pattern and a distinctive sense of humour with deeper reflections on care, routine and invisible labour.
‘I have visited Gywneth Warren at Magpie Antiques on The Shambles, Malton for over ten years. Our conversations and our love of objects and antiques has inspired many examples of my work.’ Kate Black
Cats, flowers, tea cups, biscuits and antique packaging recur throughout Black’s work as symbols of comfort, companionship and nostalgia, while also hinting at the emotional complexity beneath domestic life. Her work celebrates the handmade, the overlooked and the quietly eccentric, inviting viewers into worlds that feel both familiar and dreamlike.
Kate Black has exhibited widely across the UK, including repeated selection for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize and The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition. She was artist in residence at Drawing Projects UK in 2016 and has held solo exhibitions in London and throughout Yorkshire.
In September 2025, The Scottish Gallery presented The Women of the Parish, Kate Black’s first solo exhibition with the Gallery, which was an immersive and theatrical installation transforming the space into a fictional world of domestic goddesses, chapel gatherings, vintage shopfronts and curious cats.
