"Agriculture" Painting

Kathleen Shaver is an abstract painter who lives and works in the Hudson Valley area of New York. Her work is inspired by experiences of the surrounding mountains, fields, forests, lakes and streams.

Kathleen studied at Moore College of Art & Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia. Her work has been included in a major survey of contemporary Philadelphia artists at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and in exhibits at PAFA, Woodmere Art Museum, the James A. Michener Art Museum, Attleboro Arts Museum, the University of Maryland Art Gallery, The State Museum of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and The Galleries at Moore.

In addition to the Rodger LaPelle Galleries and 3rd Street Gallery in Philadelphia, Shaver has exhibited in galleries located in Delaware, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C. and Texas. She is the recipient of numerous awards for painting and her work is included in both private and corporate collections.




ARTIST STATEMENT:

My paintings are best described as a search for the primal. I am particularly interested in our sensory perceptions and how, when unmediated by reflective thought, they can reveal to us a kind of primordial awareness, an attunement characterized by wonder and discovery. My approach is informed by abstract expressionism and a love of paint. I work from a place where intuitive gestures and mark-making record a quest for a pre-linguistic awareness. The Lascaux cave painters, whose images transcend time, culture, and language, inspire me. This quest for a primal, wordless image touches, what is to me, the deepest mystery of human existence: Where did I come from and where am I going? My paintings invite viewers to consider an existence informed by the richness of our sensory perceptions, an existence that is not limited by words, preconceptions, or conventional identities, yet one that is framed by an unknowable mystery.

My artistic process can also be described as a primal searching. Although I work within the tradition of paint on canvas, I am constantly shifting my approach in pursuit of the unexpected. Discovery happens when I paint faster than I can think. I work on multiple pieces at a time, on canvas or sheets of Evolon paper, in a range of sizes. I may start with thin washes of paint combined with calligraphic lines, often building up to a thick, textured surface.