Kathleen Elsey - Fauvist Expressionist Painter
Twelve-Year Retrospective Show

“I am a contemporary American painter focusing on interior scape, landscape, (especially beach scenes) and still life. My paintings are marked with rich colors and dramatic brush strokes recalling both impressionist and Fauvist traditions. My new acrylic and oil works on canvas include beach scenes of California and France and paintings of interiors with interesting assemblages of shapes and colors. In my search for shapes and colors, my bright and bold brushwork tends to become more abstract.

My colors are intensified and spontaneous in my hopes for a painting full of spirit. Often I make up the colors in my paintings as a Fauve. I try to hit the values in the range they should be, but with color, I think anything goes. I like to experiment with planes and their relationships to each other. With big brushes I make swift rough strokes using blocks of color beside each other until an image emerges, especially when painting a multitude of figures like in "At the Beach, Brighton" and "Parade."

My bold colors and brash brushwork again emerge into a Fauvist (or Impressionist) painting titled “Aron’s Room.” This interior scape painting, with a dominance of warm reds and blues, is an example of my anything-goes with color theory. It is the sunlight in the room that inspired me to paint with spontaneity and dramatic brush strokes to capture the mood and suggestion of memories in spite of the absence of figures.”

Kathleen Elsey