Kitty Chung O’Kane

Kitty is a multi-award winning textile artist, a multi-discipline visual artist/designer and founder of KOCAS visual art education. She believes art innovation comes from exploration and experimentation in its creative process. This philosophy and work approach is the fundamental framework behind her teaching.

KOCAS visual art education was founded in April 1997. The school was established to fill the need of quality art classes for school children and also to meet demands from passionate adult students who are interested in learning about creative textile techniques and garment construction. Due to the range of skills and techniques taught and a broad spectrum of art media used, KOCAS classes become very popular and particularly strongly supported by senior high school students who participate in VCE art studies with aims to continue their art or design studies at tertiary levels. Over the past 20 years, Kitty has helped produce many high achieving art students from both private and State high schools. Many of whom have become dedicated art teachers or lead sucessful careers in the art and design industries.

Kitty is inspired by life experiences, people and the environment that around her. Having lived both in South-East Asian countries and in her beloved adopted home of Melbourne, her life is enriched culturally, artistically and spiritually. No doubts, this has provided thoughts and eagerness to search for creative ways to express her emotional responses towards life.

Kitty is also highly interested in finding out how our minds work to govern us and make us who we are and thus how we live. Stylised and non-representational works are typical styles Kitty uses to express her thoughts. She believes as an artist she should interpret her thoughts and feelings through a specific art language that represents her rather than copying imagery that she sees. Colours, lines, textures and distorted forms that are used in both her two dimensional and three dimensional works form her art language. Another characteristic of Kitty’s way of working is how she crosses boundaries using a diverse range of media and art forms to express a concept. Her solo exhibitions ‘Layers of thoughts’ in 2010 and ‘ Rust- What remains’ in 2013 presented collections of work ranging from works on paper, canvases, bronze and ceramic sculptures as well as textiles and garments. Kitty’s works are in public and private collections both in Australia and internationally.