Kate Shaw is a leading Australian contemporary artist known for her vividly surreal landscape paintings that explore the tension between natural environments and the psychological, spiritual, and ecological forces shaping them. Her work draws on geological phenomena, climate anxiety, and the sublime, offering otherworldly visions that challenge traditional depictions of landscape.

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Since graduating with First Class Honours in Fine Arts (Painting) from RMIT University, Shaw has developed a dynamic and internationally recognised practice. Her work has been exhibited in major solo and group exhibitions across Australia, Asia, Europe, and the United States. Recent solo exhibitions include Shadowlands at Mirus Gallery, San Francisco (2022), Continuum at Mosman Art Gallery, NSW (2019), Solastalgia at The Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong (2017), and Lucid Dreaming at Art15 in London (2015). Her group exhibitions include institutional shows such as On Earth at UQ Art Museum, Brisbane (2021), Forever Now at Rockhampton Museum of Art (2022), and Surreal Sublime at the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose (2019).

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Shaw’s work has also been presented in significant touring exhibitions such as Black Mist Burnt Country, which travelled to over 10 major public galleries across Australia, and Vertigo, which toured institutions in Indonesia, Taiwan, and South Korea via Asialink. Her work has been featured in contemporary painting surveys including Now That We're Here: 10 Years of Contemporary Painting (Rockhampton Museum of Art) and New Psychedelia at the University of Queensland Art Museum.

Kate Shaw’s paintings are held in numerous prominent public and corporate collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Rockhampton Museum of Art, Macquarie Group Collection, University of Queensland Art Museum, Museum of Brisbane, and Parliament House in Canberra. Her work is also represented in collections across the US, UK, Switzerland, Korea, and New Zealand.

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Shaw’s practice has been recognised with numerous awards and grants. She was the winner of the 2018 Tattersalls Club Prize and has been a multiple-time finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015), the Glover Prize, the Arthur Guy Painting Prize, the McGivern Prize, the Len Fox Prize, and the Hadley Art Prize. Internationally, she received the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and has undertaken prestigious residencies at Point B Worklodge in New York, SIM in Reykjavík, and Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne.Throughout her career, Shaw has remained deeply engaged with ecological discourse, contributing to publications like An Ecotopian Lexicon (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), and being reviewed in The New Yorker, Artlink, Art Collector, and Harpers Bazaar. Her unique process-based approach and hypnotic imagery continue to position her as one of Australia's most compelling voices in contemporary painting.