The Art Guide's Featured Febuary 2008 Artist :: Katherine Simmons
Glastonbury, Connecticut
• www.katherinesimmons.com • kmsartwrk@cox.net
Artist's Statement:
Whether I am painting on site or in my studio, in oil paint or oil pastel, the way that light plays over the landscape represents a point of reference and a point of departure, suggesting a mood or emotion. Completing the painting becomes a journey of exploration and discovery. In recent months, I have rediscovered the art of the still life. These meditations on the interior landscape have opened up a new world of visual poetry that makes me all the more eager to pick up a paint brush and face a new blank canvas .
Kathy found her artistic voice creating soft, sure landscapes that lead the viewer into peaceful places that promise something welcoming around the corner, giving a serene focus to each piece. Whether working in her studio or “en plein air,” using oil pastel or oil paint, each painting evolves into a woven tapestry of layered color and expressive strokes, communicating a moment in time in all its subtle variation and mood.
Katherine Simmons holds a Fine Arts Degree from the Massachusetts College of Art and completed postgraduate studies at Paier College of Art and University of Hartford, rounding out her formal training in master classes with oil painter Charles Sovek and pastelist Robert Scott Jackson.
She is an Elected Artist Member of several professional art organizations, including the Connecticut Plein Air Painters Society, Connecticut Women Artists, Lyme Art Association, Salmagundi Club, and Oil Painters of America and she is a Signature Member of the Oil Pastel Society. Simmons’ work has been featured in “The Pastel Journal,” “American Artist,” “New York Times,” and “Connecticut Magazine.”
Each day starts with a short walk from her home to the studio that she and her husband created from a renovated stable on their property. Here, she is surrounded by ample skylights and windows and all of the tools she needs to create the colorful paintings that have become her signature.
