Kathy Barber was born in Palmerston North in 1965 and now lives in Auckland with her husband.

She finished college to embark on a successful career in Advertising culminating as a Creative Group Head in 1998 when she left to have her first of two sons. Since then Kathy has been pursuing life as an abstract painter with gallery representation in Auckland and Christchurch. She is actively involved in the community teaching weekly at Browne School of Art, mentoring adult art students and is one of the crew helpers at Cloud Workshop making art projects with bereaved children.

To compliment her painting abstraction, she has also been exhibiting small wire pieces. Kathy’s approach to wire weaving is unique but has its beginnings in Kanaami a centuries old Japanese craft of weaving with wire, where artisans produce beautiful and functional pieces like tea strainers and baskets.

Kathy’s weaving sits within a sculptural realm. The works are completely hand woven and her collective is called Te-ami, which means “hand netting” in Japanese.

Her work “Homage” was a finalist in the 2022 Molly Morpeth Canaday 3D award, and her exhibition “Lost, not lost”, at Public Record earlier this year was well received. The collective included woven wall tondos (circular), vases and woven rocks - all unique in their visual outcome.