About Kate Kennedy
Kate has been painting since she could hold a brush. She began classical fine art studies in painting and drawing at University in 8th grade. Kate graduated from Gonzaga University in 1983, with a Bachelors in Fine Art. Her themes are inspired by her life in the South East and the Pacific Northwest. She spends most of the year in Charleston, SC and summers in the Pacific Northwest. Kate's loves to be near the water. and her choice of studio locations always includes a view of a lake, river, or ocean.
Kate is known for her ability to entice viewers to lean forward into the visual experience she creates. The Kate weaves the experience together with unique compositions, a masterful use of color, light, and the occasional giggle-ingredient. She prefers viewers to find their own metaphors in her work.
Kate’s favorite medium is oil paint. She creates unique and beautiful tones and hues by starting with a translucent under painting of ink or oil paint washes, and then adding layers of oil glazes to bring out subtle color changes. To tie it all together she uses a combination of direct, reflected and translucent light. The result is dramatic and powerful.
“Daydreams have always taken me to mysterious places. When I pick up a brush to paint, my dream world connects to the physical world, and a mysterious force takes my brush and I to a place where all things are possible.”
Kate’s New Renaissance Impressionist style is fresh, and adventurous. She loves brash individualism, color, contrasts, and drama. Kate has always been inspired to express appreciation and gratitude for life through nature’s physical beauty and spiritual vibration.
Her organic brush strokes follow the rhythm of nature, sensual and fluid like water or may even swirl like leaves in a breeze.
Her influences are broad, from the classic masters such as Michelangelo loves his powerful, inspired projects reflecting the human body as the ultimate vehicle for emotional expression. American impressionists John Singer Sargent, and his Edwardian era luxury portraits are another inspiring favorite. Mary Cassatt’s depictions of intimate moments of mother and child, and Childe Hassam’s landscapes and interior scenes inspire her color combinations, and rhythmic brush work.
Kate’s work in in numerous national and international collections around the world. A complete list is available upon request.
Kate is the 2019 - 2020 President of the Board for National Association for Women Artists for the South Carolina Chapter. www.thenawa.org
