2026
KATHRYN ARMITAGE:
KATHRYN ARMITAGE:
Disrupting the Beautiful
Kathryn Armitage (b. 1994) is a London-based figurative painter. After completing a BA at Camberwell, she graduated from the RCA in 2024.
Her practice is rooted in the reworking of art-historical imagery, particularly from the Dutch Golden Age. Drawing from these sources, Kathryn borrows compositional structures, lighting, and detail — ruffs, collars, sumptuous textiles — before rewriting their narratives through a contemporary lens.
Her paintings often place women at the centre of the composition, inverting traditional hierarchies of power and visibility. Through exaggerated dress, gesture, and scale, she explores femininity not as something decorative or passive, but as performative, confrontational, and self-authored.