Kaytee DeWolfe

Kaytee DeWolfe — One Serious Lady of Art & Gigs

Credit: Denise Wilson

Kaytee DeWolfe paints and produces large, mural type work for business, private residence and live festival work, mainly using spray paint and acrylics.

Having spent a chunk of her childhood on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona, there are a lot of Native American infl uences in DeWolfe’s work as well as a lust for Art Nouveau. “I’m fascinated with symbolism, merging the human form with animals and love the meditative tedium of intricate, repetitive pattern work. I tend to work with a monochromatic palette on top of midnight blues with shocks of metallic gold.”

What started as a love for “bedroom” doodles evolved into something bigger through meeting street artists in Digbeth. “Back in 2013, I became slightly obsessed with taking Instagram photos of urban decay, rust and sexy street-grime. Some of my photos would include a corner of someone’s wheat-pasted art or a close-up of peeling paint! People who follow #digbeth on Instagram would politely inform me who the artists were and so I started making connections. I eventually met up for drinks with some of the artists and got to experience my fi rst ever wheat-pasting adventure.

I was introduced to the local street-art scene, which is both diverse and won

derful. What struck me most was that there was not a typical demographic for street artists and also how encouraging everyone was. When I explained that I just did small drawings in the privacy of my home, artist Lisk Bot encouraged me to try making bigger art. I made some of my own hand-drawn wheat-pastes and stuck them up in Digbeth; things like crows with intricate patterns in their wings, fi ligree-fl owers and a large barn owl.”

DeWolfe’s work was spotted by Becci from City of Colours on Instagram who promptly invited her to create art at the

festival. “I went from drawing wheatpastes to painting an 8x8 board live in the garden of The Old Crown pub. It was amazing. It was thrilling. It was big! I loved it! Another great local artist, Annatomix, took me out for my fi rst ever large-scale painting experience with cans and ‘showed me the ropes’ before the festival to get me ready. I owe a lot to her and Lisk Bot for their encouragement and tips.”

Credit: Denise Wilson

Since the fi rst City of Colours, Kaytee DeWolfe has painted live for several other festivals, including High-Vis, Femme Fierce, Moseley Folk, and Mostly Jazz with her latest project being a set of horoscope illustrations, prints of which are available via her Etsy shop.

“With art, I get really inspired by things related to the occult like tarot cards, god & goddess folklore, faerie-tales and the bizarre. I like sticking in symbolism where I can as well. If you see a fl ower in one of my pieces, chances are it’s been chosen for a reason (Thistles for Aries! Roses for Taurus!)”

Kaytee DeWolfe writes, sings and plays rhythm guitar in local band Low Red Moon.

“The project started after I split up with an ex, who I had been in bands with for years (Bi-Polar Baby & The Dark Retreat). I wasn’t great on guitar (still

not that accomplished!) but knew that I would have to “up my game” to be more independent. From Christmas 2015 I started playing guitar a minimum of 20 mins a day, which led to me writing songs slowly over the years. I went from playing covers at open-mic nights to finally having a whole set of my own material, playing local venues around Brum.”

Since then, Kaytee slowly accumulated a band who have made the songs into different animals, finely honing a gothic folk sound into something vaguely post-punk with surfer guitar.

“We’ve only just now started recording and have a couple of demo tasters online.”

Kaytee has been writing and performing with her dad since early childhood, with the art influence coming from her mom not long after.

“I get weak in the knees for female vocals, arpeggios, descending scales, minor/Middle-Eastern sounding melo

dies and general darkness! I also love to see a band who enjoy playing live, it’s infectious! Low Red Moon have so much fun on stage and it’s nice to see others having a great time too! I was and still am heavily influenced by 90s alternative artists like Tanya Donelly of Belly, Kim Deal of The Pixies & The Breeders, Bjork, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth.”

“Through painting and gigging over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to meet many other like-minded women churning out music and art, which just feeds my fire more. Female-fronted bands are definitely on the rise! Also nice to see a better ratio of women to men at local paint-jams in Brum. Don’t get me wrong, we’re nowhere near balanced yet but hopefully the more us ladies get out there, the more we can inspire other women to have a go.”

Find, buy, listen: etsy.com/uk/shop/WolfemuthaArt facebook.com/wolfemuthaart #wolfemuthaart on Instagram soundcloud.com/kaytee-dewolfe