KATHRYN RUTHERFORD ARTIST STATEMENT

The exciting thing about having a career that includes so many aspects of the fine arts is that there is never a lack of interesting things to discover, learn, create or teach to others.

My career has spanned two countries as a high school and college art teacher and art and photographic restoration artisan and I have produced commissioned portraits and paintings for many wonderful clients.

I have worked in printmaking, created with or instructed both traditional and digital painting and drawing techniques and I am continuously in classes myself to learn new information or study with a variety of instructors. It is sometimes an exhausting life, but, definitely holds something new and varied around every corner.

Knowing this, above all else, will help the viewer understand why any body of my work is so varied in style, media and technique. Rather than produce piece after piece of "production" work, it is often thought that more than one artist exhibits in my Studio because the range of work on display is so varied.

There is, however, a binding factor to all the work in that each piece resolves a particular issue. Where one work or series may be an exploration of colour, another series may capture the effects of light and shadow. Regardless of subject matter, each painting is intended to master a single particular technique whether it be layering of watercolours, colour separations, a sixteenth century glazing method or adding beads, lace and specialty papers to a final muti-media composition. Each painting may be individually unique, but, each resolves a particular theme, style or technique.

All of my work is quite obviously influenced by the lifelong study and instruction of Art History as well as a career in portaiture and photographic restoration. My work is never photo realistic, but, solidly based on "high realism", in a manner of several periods I admire and, more often than not, is mainly figurative.

Having lived in Arizona for many years, the work of Georgia O'Keefe had an early impact. My portrait and painting style is heavily influenced by the work of James Tissot, the Pre-Raphaelites and American Impressionists such as William Merritt Chase, Mary Cassatt, Edmund Tarbell, Childe Hassam, Joseph De Camp, Frank Benson, Philip Leslie Hale, Charles Curran and mostly the dramatic light and shadow of William Paxton.

Anyone who knows me personally would have the private knowledge that my first husband was the great nephew of the famous Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha. I had a great love of Mucha's work and owned several of his prints in reproduction long before marrying into this prestigious family, but, one can certainly say it had an impact on my style for many years.

All of my work, no matter what influences it, is an explosion of colour, dramatic contrasts and lighting and often unique compositions.

The continuous pursuit of variety extends to my teaching in that my course content always covers a variety of concepts and techniques instead of step-by-step "paint-a-long" teaching. Each session of learning builds upon the last so that students of all ages are able to apply a foundation of knowledge to any of their own subject matter or media. Never, will they learn to paint a single object using a single style or technique and nothing more in my classes.

Recently, my work has begun to explore more personal concepts and theories about which I have long thought, but, never had the time to execute. This new work, while striving to master individual and challenging new techniques, is more "ethereal" in nature, often symbolic and definitely more personal in accomplishment.

William Morris Hunt said, "You cannot suit everybody, so you had better suit yourself." The time has come to balance the commission work, which is dictated by someone else's desires, with personal pursuits which are my own and will, hopefully, be equally enjoyed by my audience and collectors alike.