Kate Emlen
I often work with a limited palate: one each of red, yellow, and blue, plus white. This limitation helps me to focus on changes in temperature and value rather than on the concrete details in the landscape. It’s always surprising how a minor shift in temperature can make a major distinction in the picture. When the landscape emerges from my observation of temperature, everything seems whole. Once complete, the painting is often abstract which I find most satisfying.
During the summer, Emlen paints on location on along the coast of Maine, taking in both the vistas as well as the intimate environment of the woods. “I enjoy finding a small, everyday view and transforming it into an emotional experience for the viewer. I like to communicate my love of the larger landscape in small glimpses. On my more exuberant days, I like to paint the sweep of longer views.”
As background to her career as painter, she started out in commercial art as a designer for silkscreen prints. “Color and composition have always fascinated me, as a painter and for a few decades as a designer of sillkscreen prints. The intellectual puzzle of working out color and composition relationships for the printing press taught me a discipline that serves me well at the easel. I enjoy the spontaneity of the process of discovering those relationships while painting. I like the freedom of working all over the format and changing my mind moment to moment.”
Emlen received her MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University, followed by painting residencies at Vermont Studio School and Bennington College. She has studied in Umbria, Italy at the International School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture. She exhibits in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and New York City.