Kate Samworth

Samworth’s work explores the potential of allegory, satire, imagination, and personal expression to tell stories about our evolving relationship with the natural world. Working from memory, observation, and imagination, the artist is inspired by the writings and drawings of pre-twentieth century naturalists who made difficult journeys in search of new specimens to identify and catalog, and from the darker aspects of folk tales. She creates images using a scratchboard method, a labor-intensive process in which cardboard is coated with impermeable white clay and then covered in a layer of ink that is scratched or scraped to reveal the white surface below.

Samworth received her bachelor of fine arts degree from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). Her work has been in recent exhibitions at PAFA and at LeMieux  Gallery in New Orleans. Her fourth book, Grand Isle, was published in 2021 by Akashic Books.