Lauren Kate was born in 1981 in Mbombela, close to the Kruger Park, and was raised in Cape Town. Her background includes a Social Science degree in Psychology and Anthropology (UCT) and a PGCE in Visual Art and Life Orientation for the FET phase. 

She also has a diploma in graphic design. Lauren Kate has worked as a full-time Visual Art teacher since 2010 while also steering her focus to her personal work. When creating her artworks, the interplay of digital art with traditional media leads to an authentically rustic feel. She adores working with a variety of media such as watercolour pencils, cut-out paper

images, the brush and inks. She includes actual textures in her works so materials like flower petals, sugar crystals and liquorice all-sorts can find their way into her compositions. The end result is that her work transports the viewer to a mysterious place in a distant land that inspires a magical story with “africanesque” themes.

When employing the medium of collage, Lauren Kate says that every piece of the composition is viewed in an unhabitual way and each element is seen to exist as one of a kind, but also as a part of something larger than itself. Through working as a Visual Art teacher in a high school, she is surrounded by a vast array of visual sources. The compositions she constructs are informed by her continuous consumption of images on a daily basis.

She does separate art from her work, or “other” life – rather, it all connects as one.