Location: United States
Kathryn Gauthier began her studies at the age of nine. By sixteen she was competing in local and national shows, receiving awards for her carefully rendered still lives. She went on to both visual and performing arts, completeing her BA in fine art. It wasn’t until she moved to the city of Chicago, however, that her unique artistic voice began to emerge.
She has been simultaneously pursuing careers in the visual and performing arts since that time. Her work can be found in the collections of the Beverly Art Center, Beverly, IL, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago IL, the VanderPoel Museum, Beverly IL, Southside Community Art Center, Chicago IL, Millville Public Library, Millville MA. She has participated in prestigious group exhibitions throughout the Massachusetts and Chicago areas.
In a series of semi-abstract mixed media paintings Gauthier draws inspiration from avant-garde jazz, working from sketches made during live performance. The resulting imagery is as vibrant, fluid, rhythmic and colorful as the source.
She is concurrently working on a series inspired by the natural abstractions in the urban landscape as seen in the fluid reflections contrasted by the static grid of windows. For Kathryn it presents a visual metaphor for the nature of modern society. The necessity to compartmentalize our lives in order to keep pace creates a paradigm of conflicting forces. …Structure versus chaos …Essence versus form.
Gauthier sometimes combines performance and visual art, expressing her multidisciplinary leanings. She finds grounding in nature and home as evidenced by her body of fine watercolor studies and graphite drawings.
Inspired by the fluid nature of avant guard jazz, these works are largely improvised works based on sketches at live performances in Chicago.
Inspired by a song by the same name performed at a Ken Vandermark concert.
Inspired by a Ken Vandermark performance.
Inspired by the East West Band at the No Exit Cafe in Chicago
This series is a way of reaching into that part of myself that yearns for intimacy and understanding by exploring the psychological and emotional subtext of functional objects. Perhaps it is a way of connecting with past generations whose hands worked the everyday magic of preparing family meals, sewing, darning, canning, and building things by hand.
Functional objects and tools possess an elegance of form that is both pleasing to look upon and rich in story. The juxtaposition of objects of contrasting function or form suggests relationships, nuances of intimacy or alienation. Removing objects from their natural context or presenting them in ways that are unexpected forces the viewer to see the object as something familiar yet completely new.
“Espresso Pot & Cookie Cutter”
Playing with angles and sensuous line, positive and negative spaces, this piece entices the viewer to explore the image like a landscape.
This surreal image of the hand iron resting on a "landscape" of wrinkled fabric conjures the work of living, ... of ironing out our differences, our life's details, our thoughts and dreams.
This still life evokes the collection of kitchen tools my grandmother might have used. The cast shadows intersect with the objects, creating an interplay reminiscent of a memory.
This assortment of various unrelated vessels and objects highlights the natural distortions and visual joy of light through glass, leaving the viewer to journey through the positive and negative spaces.
This painting contrasts the cool light of outdoors against the warm incandescent glow of interior lighting, suggesting comfort and home.
There is something intrinsically wanting about this empty vessel, but illuminated, it offers hope for the potential to be filled with creamy delight.
The first of this series, "Hanging in the Balance" is a balancing act of form, pattern, color, shape, and line, that keeps the viewer's eye endlessly bouncing in spite of it's static nature.
A collection a marbles in a glass canning jar, like all the joys of childhood contained, wanting to be set free to dance in the light.
The flying flatware are metaphor for the family unit in this surreal image. They journey together into the future.
The subtle colors and reflective qualities of this iconic image, representative of a simpler time presents a kind of zen empty yet full experience.
Salt and Pepper Shakers always travel together, like partners in life.
In this series, I celebrate both the fluid and the static energies at work in the urban environment. The distortions created by the glass reflect the deeper reality of the flow of energy that is the essence of life. …it’s people, …the thoughts and ideas in constant regeneration, which shape and reshape the world.
The mixed mediums allow for flexibility and textural versatility as well as a range of reflective pigments that allow for a play of light over the surface of the painting that reinforces the sense of fluidity and perpetual motion.
48"h x 72"w This image captures the evening light over the urban landscape.
24" x 24" This piece catches a reflection from Lake Shore Drive in the new wing of the Museum of the Art Institute.
48"h x 72"w The distorted grays of the urban backdrop possess a sense of cathedral-like grandeur strangely contrasted by the modern icon of the McDonald's arches.
The new constructions loom above the old brick buildings in this urban image.
I especially like the abstractions in this image as well as the bold color dynamic.
“Trio”
“StairCase”
“Jestation”
“Nervana”
“Copper Kettle”
“The Weight of Our Existence”
“Beater & Cups”
“Farrago”
“Pitcher At Dusk”
“Sundae Dish”
“Hanging in the Balance”
“Marbleous”
“Flying In Formation”
“Half Pint”
“Sojourners”
“Five O'Clock Shadow”
“Urban Spring”
“Golden Arches”
“Old And New”
“820 N. Orleans St.”
