Sunlit Room
Acrylic on linen 24" x 30"

“As for the rougher stuff, aesthetically speaking, Kathleen Elsey’s painting exerts a bold, almost post-Fauvist-meets-funk touch in her work. “Sunlit Room,” for one, flirts with burly Van Gogh effects, with a vivified palette and brusque brushwork. It’s the mightiest and most memorable piece in the room, says this unavoidably subjective observer.”

Josef Woodard
Santa Barbara News Press Correspondent
February 29, 2008

“Art about landscape is more than an offshoot of Santa Barbara’s art scene, but a coursing trend. And given that inherent and ongoing popularity, the challenge of putting on a group landscape art show becomes one of showcasing varietals beneath the umbrella genre. With the current group show at Santa Barbara’s Fielding Graduate University, “Terra Firma,” the curator has managed a feat by ferreting a group of artists with individual approaches to the “field.”

Emerging as the most abstraction-hugging member of the landscape exhibition, Kathleen Elsey leans away from clean-machined “plein air” aesthetics. “Rio 3” and “Sedona Sunset” are assemblies of abstract shapes and gestures, far removed from-yet also noticeably connected to-sources and patterns of color and light in nature.”

Josef Woodard
Santa Barbara News Press Correspondent
November 7, 2008

“I am a contemporary American painter focusing on interior scape, landscape, (especially beach scenes) and still life. My paintings are marked with rich colors and dramatic brush strokes recalling both impressionist and Fauvist traditions. My new acrylic and oil works on canvas include beach scenes of California and France and paintings of interiors with interesting assemblages of shapes and colors. In my search for shapes and colors, my bright and bold brush work tends to become more abstract.

My colors are intensified and spontaneous in my hopes for a painting full of spirit. Often I make up the colors in my paintings as a Fauve. I try to hit the values in the range they should be, but with color, I think anything goes. I like to experiment with planes and their relationships to each other. With big brushes I make swift rough strokes using blocks of color beside each other until an image emerges, especially when painting a multitude of figures like in "At the Beach, Brighton" and "Parade."

My bold colors and brash brushwork again emerge into a Fauvist (or Impressionist) painting titled “Aron’s Room.” This interior scape painting, with a dominance of warm reds and blues, is an example of my anything-goes with color theory. It is the sunlight in the room that inspired me to paint with spontaneity and dramatic brush strokes to capture the mood and suggestion of memories in spite of the absence of figures.”

Kathleen Elsey