Welcome to the gallery

Kathleen Grace

Fine Arts

Here in the gallery are artworks in multiple mediums, painting, photography, miniature sculpture, hand-crafted journals and gifts hand-made by the artist.  My philosphy about art is about the nature of timelessness, that works have a feel of exisitng through the ages, and now.  And what motivates me to create art is color, beauty and a sense of inner joy.  The artists who most influenced me are artists who embraced color, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Matisse, Bonnard, and in particular the influence of artist Morris Graves who when I first saw his work felt a deep inner connection and found my own voice from that connection.

      The paintings are simple yet complex with layers of paint muted by mixing many colors together and scrubbed, manipulated, to achieve a layered, atmospheric look.  I paint landscape, still life and abstract.  My landscapes are not based on anything real except how we may read a landscape from a distance off - the barest hint, a sense of landscape. All my works stem from that sense, the still lifes, portraits of objects that have a life of their own and their relationships with each other.  The abstracts conceived as we sense the past with its many layers.  It's important to respect time and age and their effect on us.

I work with acrylic paint and mixed media with gouache, charcoal and pastels added, in the abstracts papers, graphite and additional items collaged in the image . The paintings are on paper, wood, panel and canvas.  The works are personal and intimate, begging the viewer in to come closer to see.  They speak quietly and with great emotion.  The current works are all small works although the artist works in all size media.

      Photography was an early love since my first camera at age six.  My persective is unique and perhaps a  quirky view of everyday objects, scenes, landscapes that are right in plain sight - there is an exquisite beauty in the magic of the mundane.  The philosophy of the photography is to allow the camera to be the tool, to facilitate this more physical and outgoing art form in making her art.  What most inspires me is the street and the relationships of signs, object, lights, movement.  I make no claims on being a highly skilled photographer, I am an artist first and use the camera as my tool.  I often forget to check camera settings I get so excited about what I see and my movement to capture that.  And the advantage now of digital photography is that I get to make the picture feel as I felt it, what I saw beyond the street sign or the neon light or the trees in the distance. 

First exhibiting my art in 1991 in juried exhibitions and small galleries, I have received a number of awards for my work.  But what I most enjoy is when a person says why did you paint it that way.  Sometimes people get what I mean at first sight, and other times it takes awhile to understand - and the time I like most is when someone comes back to a work, and says 'it's really quite peaceful isn't it.'  That's where I like to go.

                                                                                       Kathleen Grace

Website designed by K Grace, artist, All artwork copyright the artist 2012