Wonky Cat Art United Kingdom
I am a Brighton based artist who explores the weird and the wonky through watercolour, pencil drawings and mixed media ornamental art boxes. I received my degree in Cultural and Historical Studies from the University of Brighton and have exhibited at Newhaven Art Space, Pretty Neat Gallery, and Artist's Open Houses and my work will soon be shown at Animalartspace in the Drawing Exhibition.
My practice explores the perfectly imperfect and embraces flaws, quirks and mistakes as essential, beautiful components of a person or animal. Our compassion and empathy is often more available for animals than humans and is a gateway to social empathy and full acceptance of diversity.
When I begin a project, I search for shapes and lines within the subject to fall in love with, and I develop a plan of how I will communicate these to the viewer. I look for imperfections, vulnerabilities and “problems” which give rise to that feeling of joyful wonder, and I use intentional flaws and mistakes to capture this.
I paint primarily wet on wet in watercolour and harness the controlled chaos of water and pigment to explode the paper with colour, using splashy flicks of the brush and colluding with blooms, and backruns. I am currently exploring the possibilities of UV reactive watercolour paint. I am interested in combining this with the techniques of gesture drawing as applied to a painted surface. This process lends itself very well to capturing the transformative joy of movement.
I work with coloured pencil to make monotone drawings of animals and birds which preserve pentimento, including visible traces of the creative process to build an expressive sense of motion. I make grimy ornamental art boxes with many layers of stencils, cracks and paint build up. These boxes contain unexpected surprises inside and serve as a visual reminder that when we fully engage, we often discover unexpected depths.
My watercolour practice features a palette of Holbein, Daniel Smith and Winsor and Newton paints applied to premium cold pressed Hahnemühle, Arches or Khadi papers. For detailed or gesture drawings, I pair Faber Castell polychromos pencils and Derwent Drawing pencils with Khadi or Hahnemühle surfaces. My mixed media works built on wooden foundations layering acrylic paints, inks, and structural mediums, with a rich variety of collage, resin, clay and found objects.
Artwork
Large Mermaid Box, Mixed Media, 2025
Emergency Spoon Supply Box, Mixed Media, 2025
Dancing Hands - UV, UV Reactive Watercolour, 2025
Dancer's Face - UV, UV Reactive Watercolour, 2026
Dancing Feet - UV, UV Reactive Watercolour, 2025
Dancer with Purple Hair, UV Reactive Watercolour, 2025
Fred, Pencil, 2026
Angus, Pencil and Pen, 2025
Puffin, Watercolour, 2025
Requiem For My Dreams, Watercolour, 2025
Galaxy Cat, Watercolour, 2026
Raven, Pencil, 2026
Land, Eye and Sea, Watercolour, 2025
Projects and exhibitions
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Wild and Tame28/02/2026 — ongoing Some pieces in Wild & Tame are immediately recognisable as one or the other — bold and expressive, or calm and considered. Others invite you to look a little closer, questioning how we see the world around us and whether something can be both wild and tame at the same time. Bringing together paintings, textile work, sculpture, and smaller... [Read more] |
Pretty Neat Gallery, Brighton | Details |
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Artists Open Houses28/11/2025 — 14/12/2025 https://aoh.org.uk/house/winter2025/nether-regions-2/ |
Nether Regions, Brighton | Details |
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Newhaven Art Space01/09/2025 — 30/09/2025 |
BN9 Studio, Newhaven | Details |