Public Servants

These paintings record transitory, fleeting events in which road workers employ strange, often quite archaic equipment to repair and maintain the urban environment, painting yellow lines, dismantling bus shelters, constructing kerbs, and sandbagging against floods.

Exploring the paradox of the invisible ubiquitous hi-vis, Kate uses colourful oil paint so the fluorescent clothing competes with equally vibrant backgrounds – the workers subjugated by their surroundings – and to celebrates the unnoticed work that produces the public realm.