Rotate with Katie McGowan
Meet Katie McGowan, a contemporary figurative painter and the founder of Wavism, a rhythmic, immersive painting style that captures movement, emotion, and the fluidity of the human experience, particularly through the female form.
London-based artist Katie McGowan paints in a way that feels alive. Her colourful, flowing artworks are full of movement and emotion, often focusing on the female form. She’s developed her own style called Wavism that uses small, wave-like brushstrokes to build up powerful, expressive images. The result? Paintings that seem to dance off the canvas.
Katie didn’t take a traditional route into art. Although she always loved being creative at school, she didn’t study art at university. It wasn’t until after graduating and moving to London that she started to miss making things with her hands. “I signed up for a six-week painting class,” she says, “and I was hooked straight away.” From there, her journey into art grew naturally starting with simple sketches and slowly developing into the bold, textured style she works in today.
Living in London is a big part of her inspiration. “There’s art everywhere,” she says. “One day I was on the Victoria line and just decided to go see the Turner paintings at Tate Britain. Fifteen minutes later, I was standing in front of them.” That easy access to creativity helps fuel her own.
Katie paints because it helps her say the things words can’t. “I’ve never been that good with words,” she says, “but painting feels natural. It’s calming and fulfilling. I also love that my work connects with other women, it means a lot when people tell me they see themselves in it.”
Her paintings focus on themes like strength, vulnerability, identity, and change all through the lens of the female experience. She's influenced by famous artists like the Impressionists, known for their bright colours and expressive brushwork, as well as more modern painters who work with oils and texture. But Katie’s style is very much her own.
Each painting starts with layers of tiny, curved brushstrokes a technique she calls Wavism. The figures in her work slowly emerge through these waves of colour and motion, rather than being drawn with clear lines. She mainly uses oil paint because of its rich texture and the way it reflects light, and she loves painting in the late afternoon, when her west-facing studio fills with warm, golden sunlight.
Her brushes are her most important tools especially the angled ones she’s grown attached to over time. And she couldn’t work without natural light, which she says makes a huge difference in how the colours feel and how each piece comes together.
Over the years, her painting style has become more free and intuitive. “At the beginning, I was really focused on getting everything ‘right’ like perfect proportions or the exact colour,” she says. “Now, I trust my instincts more. I’ve let go of perfection and focused on expression.”
Katie’s current series of work is called Awakening. It’s a personal collection that reflects a turning point in her artistic journey when everything started to come together: her voice, her style, and her confidence. One of her favourites from the series is a piece called Azure, which she says felt completely natural to create. “It was one of those paintings where everything just clicked.”
Katie McGowan’s artwork is now on view on the first floor of the CourtX Pavilion and invites you to feel as much as see. Through colour, movement, and texture, she paints not just figures but stories, emotions, and moments of connection.
Explore her work at www.katiemcgowanart.co.uk
Follow on Instagram: @katiemcgowanart
For sale enquiries or commissions: hello@katiemcgowanart.co.uk
