Katie Pretti is an artist whose practice slyly treads the line between abstraction and the outer limits of figuration. Her vigorous use of line and colour creates motion and energy throughout, resulting in paintings that are tumultuous, muscular, powerful and deeply personal. Pretti attributes most of her learning to Turner, Fuseli, and De Kooning, and in spite of place and time, the Toronto-based artist is obsessed with applying Romanticism and Abstract Expressionism to contemporary drawing and painting.
A graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, Pretti has held studios in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Brooklyn, and Montreal. Her work has been profiled in Carte Blanche Volume 2: Painting (a survey of Canadian Painters), Magenta Magazine, and Canadian House & Home, among others. Public and Corporate Collections include SoHo House in Toronto, TD Canada Trust, and the National Gallery of Canada Artist Book Library. In 2013 an exhibition of works on paper took place at the Al Green Gallery in Toronto, and paintings were simultaneously featured at Neubacher Shor Contemporary in Toronto. She was recently included in group shows at the Catinca Tabacaru Gallery in New York and Rostad Edwards Fine Art in Miami. She is represented by Barbara Edwards Contemporary in Toronto.