Events › Kathryn Whitten Art Exhibit

The Point Reyes Library presents

Work by Kathryn Whitten

on exhibit March 2025

Tomales Bay, Midsummer. Oil on silk. 16 x 24 inches.

Artist Statement

Landscape painting is of vital importance in our current era. Landscapes contribute to the idea of an American consciousness that is built on recognition of our shared reliance on the land. This shared reliance is what makes each person who lives on this soil truly interconnected.

My paintings are about belonging to the American West. They are about understanding our relationship to the land, and thereby each other, and honoring it as sacred.

The American West is of particular importance in this exploration because of my personal belonging to it. I have grown up and built my life out West and have been inevitably shaped by it. I seek to faithfully depict the conditions of light and color that make this place particular. I depict scenes that suggest intimacy rather than transaction: trees lit by moonlight or hills covered in fog in the early morning. I am not simply a recreator here, enjoying memories of sunny days on the beach, but someone whose life is built here day by day, someone whose soul and body, whose family, community, and country are dependent on the well-being of this place.

Secondly, as Wallace Stegner points out in his essay, “Striking the Rock,” the American West is special because of the amount of protected land here - protected by the National Park Service as well as responsible community-based agriculture. These protections have served as an important counter to the destructive and all-too-central characteristics of American culture that seek to exploit land and people for personal economic gain. Painting the American West is my way of contributing to this counter-philosophy of the West.

I utilize my personal visual vocabulary of the holy to depict the landscape. I developed a method for painting on silk in light washes and abstracted shapes of color. Light in the room bounces off the wall and through the back of the painting to suggest stained glass, a signifier of the sacred that I derive from my Catholic upbringing.

My work seeks to further respect for American land. It asks the question of how we might structure our lives and beliefs differently if we were to honor our connection to it.

About the Artist:

Kathryn Whitten is a featured artist of the Marin County Free Library On The Wall community art lending program. Her oil on canvas "Sunday Breakfast" is available to borrow at the Point Reyes Library.

To find out more about Kathryn, visit her web site: https://kateelenawhitten.wixsi...
or check out her Instagram: @kate.whitten

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