Kathleen Elsey - Fauvist Expressionist Painter
"Brush with Life" Solo Exhibition in San Francisco

"I envision the completed painting before I pick up a brush. I look through my viewfinder, analyzing every quadrant of the painting, inspecting everything in detail that is before me. I look at the landscape thinking of the colors, values I am about to paint. I think about the mood of the painting. Will it be dark and moody full of rich reds and browns, or will it be light and bright? I sketch the scene discovering more and more about what is before me. Finally, I pick up the brush and take off with paint. As a Fauve, often I make up the colors or exaggerate the colors. This is what I love about painting. I can work fast, spontaneously while my fine-tuned eyes search for colors and shapes. It is this impression of what I see and feel that I want to transform into paint. This is what painting really is. So the canvas becomes integrated with shapes and colors, carefully orchestrated yet casual and spontaneous.

It has been proven scientifically that the brain is improved by listening to music—studying pitch, tone as a musician does. Could it also be true that studying color, value and shapes through sensitive eyes, looking harder and learning to see as an artist does, can improve your brain quality and visual senses? I think so.

I remember my first peaceful night during my recent stay on Sonoma Mountain, where I lived for many years. That mountain has claimed me. Sometimes I think I AM the mountain. The hooting owls, the croaking frogs sing in surround sound. I bond with them all. The stars are the only sound tonight. I woke up but nothing woke me. No creatures, no whispering trees, no sound, no footsteps, no movement. I guess the stars woke me. Or maybe the darkness woke me. Maybe the comfort woke me. Now the horizon is coming alive with flickering lights and movement. The sky is waking with Prussian overhead and cerulean blue over the band of dark purple fog. The stars are fading making room for today. The owl is quieting. Now there is red and a yellow streak in the purple horizon. One last ribbit. No followers answer the lone frog. Today is coming alive. Looking east waiting for the sunrise the air fills with pink light and the owl is in the distance sounding a little timid. This is what it is like just before dawn.

And this is exactly what gives me inspiration to make paintings like Taos Mountain Morning and Peaceful Valley with Cows."

Kathleen Elsey