Kate Horan

“I always have to find something to hang the paint on.”     Jim Dine

SOME THOUGHTS ON MY PROCESS

If you draw from life you can learn to “see.” Observation is a teacher.

As a figurative painter I relate to a story teller. My language is painted line and painted color. I distort my figures: man, woman, animal, object—because there in lies the meat of it all: the feeling and suggestion of meaning.

Figures in my paintings are often invented using some of the techniques I’ve learned from art study and years of drawing from life. I’ve found that knowing the basics gives me more freedom to break the “rules” with conviction.

From where do my paintings come? Sometimes an idea comes from my own strong reaction to an event or experience, or a phrase from somewhere that just won’t let me go.  Maybe something random pops into my mind. Maybe I have no idea at all. I’ll stare at a canvas and pull something out of the brushstrokes. My process is very internal and I feel my way through a painting.

Although I sometimes paint fast, my work is slow. It cannot be seen at a glance: not the technique; not what the painting may say. I don’t want my paintings to stop on the surface. They are a conversation, as all art is, with myself, with a viewer. If a painting is successful it will draw a viewer in to not only see the work but feel the experience.

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Kate Horan graduated from Trinity College, Washington DC, with a BA in English, minoring in Art History. She began her studies in Fine Art at the Maryland Museum of Art, continued them at SUNY/Buffalo, the School of Visual art (NYC), the Art Students League (NYC), and did graduate Fine Art study at SUNY/Buffalo. Her work is in collections nationwide.