Interview
Kathryn Leary
Kathryn Leary's dynamic abstract paintings create a visual impact upon it's viewers. Kathryn's current portfolio of works, which totals over 40 medium to large scale canvases, was created during a period of time the artist was journeying through love, loss, pain, confusion and the immense need of inner peace. With each work, the artist painted using various mediums and hours long physical method, creating abstract paintings which exude deep thought, wonder and exhaustion. Kathryn Leary's passion for painting and her dedication to creating works that exemplify raw honesty are being now shown for the first time in publication. The excitement is felt deeply as this new to the art world abstract painter glows with excitement.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I attended Parsons School of Design New York City in 2000. I graduated from Parsons with a Bachelor's of Fine Arts degree with a major in Photography. Only recently, in the last 5 years did I ever start painting. I paused my career to be the sole caregiver for my mother who was struggling with Louis Bodies dementia for the last of her years. I realized at one point I was burned out and was desperate to be creative again. So, I started experimenting with painting on large canvases in the basement of the house I took care of my mother in which turned out to be the most important art therapy I could have asked for. I would end up getting lost in painting for hour's on end, starting late at night, after I had put mom to bed, and realize when done painting for hours, it was practically morning. It was a vacation for my mind. A release for my heart. And a tool for my heartache and at times suffering watching the woman I so loved, cherished and admired live with dementia. Every painting I created is filled with brush strokes of endurance, fortitude and hope. Over the few years of this, for only personal reasons for painting, I created a massive catalog of paintings and a realization that I have an incredible deep passion for painting and a constant eagerness to paint.”
What inspires you?
“Great question. But difficult to answer in short, as everything in this world inspires me. Literally everything. I believe I have a hyper awareness of all things life, and an eye for the smallest details in things. I see and hear everything around me. Which fills me with immense inspiration to feel life around me and translate what my mind, heart and soul is wanting to communicate. In abstract of course. I immediately and naturally became aware that the style of which I was painting in was abstract. Which one could say is a wonderful pictorial version of the bursts of feelings and human emotions I live with everyday. If anything, one word to answer the question. Life inspires me.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“Even if I have an idea of what I may my next painting to look like, it never ends up as previously thought. More than half the time, I just swing my brush, spray that can of paint in a very physically methodical way, style and fashion exploding on the canvas what I am currently feeling and thinking. I am wild, feral, free and honest. I don't hold back. I make sure I am unrestricted in my painting studio to be able to not worry about where wet paint will fling to next, ceiling, walls, window's, doors, myself. Freedom of borders and a raw honesty in my method is what ends up creating my pieces of work.”
How would you describe your work?
“Manageably uncontained, free and wild. Purposely honest. Always raw. Never knowing or dictating how the painting with conclude. I am a risk taker. An experimenter.”
Which artists influence you most?
“There is no singular artist that influences my work. Even though I do have a BFA degree from Parsons School of Design, so therefore was exposed to many histories of painters, I was never influenced by, no think of in reference. As I only started painting a few years ago, as a desperate necessity for inner calm and peace, I only paint in the style I know how, which is influenced only by my mind, body, soul and heart.”
“Freedom of borders and a raw honesty in my method is what ends up creating my pieces of work.”
What is your creative process like?
“To put aside the hours of time I want to paint. And then I paint. My painting studio is allowed to get completely art messy. As it allows me the freedom to physically create without a worry creative restrictions in my movements.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I can only speak for myself, so to answer this question, my role as an artist in society, albeit a brand new one to the painting art scene, is to allow a viewer to wonder, wander, seek, think, journey, confuse, solve, smile, chuckle, tear-up, become enthralled and addicted to what is right in front of them and they want more. I believe artists of all kinds are creators of gateways for viewer’s to escape in, if not for just an hour. We give everyone's minds a break, if not just for a moment. We are the facilitators of pause, take a moment and breath in one's life.”
