Featured Artist Kate Wood

Artist Kate Wood celebrates her home state in stunning landscapes of the mountains and terrain of Alaska. Enjoy her work and visit her website to see more.

 

 

Having painted since I could hold a brush, I am still painting – finally full time, as well as following up a long ago printmaking desire. Growing up in rural New England, nature and the outdoors has always been the source of subject matter. Moving to Alaska roughly 40 years ago, and living in the Alaskan ‘Bush’ 12 of those 40 years, mountains are part of me. They are ever changing, minute by minute.

 

 

At one point in the Bush, I was painting the same scene sometimes several times a day with the changing light and weather. It never looked the same twice. I continue with mountainscapes from around the state. I am fascinated by the shapes and light of the mountains and consider most of my work semi-abstract.

 

 

Besides nature and the great outdoors, I love animals – especially dogs, which has led into doing commissioned pet portraits. When not doing a commissioned portrait, I have four willing Scotties full of antics as subject matter. My pet portraits vary from capturing the personality to a stylized freer portrait pending the wishes of the pet parent.

 

 

Currently, I am preparing for a show in May 2013 in one of the larger galleries in Fairbanks. I am working in watercolor and mixed media in a larger format than normal – 3 feet x 2 feet, including diptychs of 6 feet in length. Of course, they will mostly be my beloved mountains.

 

 

Besides this larger than normal painting (for me), each painting will have an accompanying print.  Same theme, but with a variation of media from linoleum to monotype prints. This is an exciting project, with the final goal to have 20 full size paintings with an accompanying print. There are definitely enough mountain ranges in Alaska to fulfill my need of subject matter.

 

 

Due to the economy, a number of galleries in Fairbanks, Alaska have closed, leaving artists nowhere to exhibit. A number of us without a gallery banned together to form Two Street Gallery, a co-operative art gallery to promote local art, and keeping the artist in mind. I am one of the founding members of this fine art gallery that is located in the heart of downtown Fairbanks, Alaska.

 

 

We are open year round and each member mans the gallery, so there is always  an artist in the gallery to answer questions. The goal of the gallery is to benefit all of the artists by the gallery taking enough commission to pay the bills but the individual artist see more of the rewards, therefore hopefully offering fine art at fair prices with the artist benefiting as well as the consumer.