Spring 2025

Santa Fe artist Kathleen Frank travels throughout the American West, seeking inspiration for her landscape paintings. Using vibrant hues, she captures light and pattern in her search for logic within complex terrains. Exhibitions include International Art Museum of America; Museum of Western Art; St. George Museum of Art; Northwest Montana History Museum; UNM Valencia; MonDak Heritage Center| Art & History Museum; WaterWorks Museum; Sahara West Gallery; La Posada de Santa Fe; and Jane Hamilton Fine Art. Press includes LandEscape Art Review, MVIBE, Art Reveal, Magazine 43 and Southwest Art. Art in Embassies/U.S. State Department selected her work for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Artist Statement: Having been an art teacher, woodcarver and a printmaker in my formative years, I emerged as a painter, joyously overwhelmed by color and searching for pattern. Color and pattern are everywhere, but the seeing and interpretation of them are different for each of us. Pattern in nature is primal to me – which fuels my desire to find a glimmer of logic in vastly complicated, confusing and tumbled landscapes. I do also seek out the vibrant hues in landscapes. My oil paintings begin with a saturated red orange backdrop. This is overlaid with the main imagery, applied with distinct brushstrokes of brilliant color. Hints of the red background peek through like a woodcut, creating subtle impact without drawing attention away from the primary subjects. Several times a year I travel throughout the Southwest, hiking and photographing vistas for future paintings. The goal is to catch the light and design in these scenes in all its strangeness and beauty. It is a lofty goal, but I find when the quest is shepherded with paint and brush it is a delightfully daunting adventure.

Top Gallery: Cumbres Pass (2015, oil, 37.5″x 49.5″)

Bottom Gallery (top to bottom): Crested Butte Meandering (2017, oil, 41.5″x 41.5″), Dawn at Nordfjord (2015, oil, 49.5″x 61.5″), Creekside Grazing (2020, oil, 36″x 36″), Deep River Distant Cliffs (2023, oil on canvas, 48″ x 36″), Cornlillies and Conifers (2018, oil, 41.5″x 41.5″), Dead Horse Point II (2019, oil on linen, 30″ x 40″), Death Valley Shadows (2018, oil, 37.5″ x 37.5″), Diablo Canyon Wash (2022, oil, 37.5″ x 37.5″), DD Ranch Along Highway 4 (2008, oil, 25″ x 49″)