KATHERINE PITT
ABOUT
Kathryn Pitt is a UK born artist that now lives and works in Los Angeles. A figurative and non-representational 2D artist, and a ceramicist, Kathryn has been involved with and featured in many exhibitions in California, throughout the US and overseas, whilst teaching art to children within her studio and as a docent at the Getty Museum. Kathryn has had three solo shows over the past seven years, the last in 2020 at Brittany Davis Gallery in Ojai, has curated several shows and has an honorable mention for her painting 'Red View' at the juried show 'Bold Expressions' at Northern California Arts, Sacramento.
STATEMENT
My latest collection of paintings is of female nudes. The human form is a very traditional subject matter that reoccurs throughout art history from the beginning of humankind. The female figure never bores me and I return to it time after time. Depicting a human body is complex; it is technically difficult; the perspective, the form, the contours. It is even more difficult to create the illusion that the person is physically alive; breathing. You want the viewer to wonder what the person is thinking and feeling. To create that sense of movement in the figure I usually use just one or two flat headed brushes for most of my paintings to sustain momentum, using short broad quick strokes, blurring boundaries. Observing the skin tones deeply you realize the broad spectrum of color. I try and recreate those hues in my paintings by layering paint color over paint color. The layering of paint and undefined edges create an ambiguity, an incomplete picture. I try to make paintings that the viewer has to work hard to complete in their own imaginations. I want them to create their own narrative for the piece. I draw the eye of the viewer into the paintings by paying particular attention to the background, making them very concentrated either by texture or depth of color. Throughout Art History the female form has been celebrated, objectified, worshipped and distorted but has always been a fascination for artists. In this era of #metoo and as a woman I am also fascinated. I am influenced by many of the great artists in history but am inspired by women of today and their voices that are coming out loud and clear. In my exploration of the female form I wish to show how powerful, empowering, vulnerable and beautiful women are in every way.