About the Artist

Katharine Taylor was raised in a family that encouraged arts and crafts. She was homeschooled, which allowed flexibility to incorporate art into lessons and time for museum visits while the family traveled across the country. She graduated from Hillsdale College in Michigan in 2002, summa cum laude and valedictorian of her class. At Hillsdale, Taylor took a class in oil painting and fell in love with its capacity for rich colors and vibrant brushstrokes. Her paintings won awards in both the Hillsdale College student juried shows, and the Michigan Small College Juried Shows. After graduating Taylor was given a one-year grant to work on a collaborative sacred arts project at Hillsdale.

Taylor moved to Missouri for a job in graphic design, but her love for traditional painting never left her. Back in Michigan in 2008, she fell into an opportunity to teach drawing and painting at her alma mater. Teaching renewed her passion for fine art, which led to her decision to pursue an MFA in Fine Art – Painting at Academy of Art University. She graduated in May, 2017. Currently, Taylor lives with her husband, two small girls, two dogs, and a cat, in a house nestled into a quiet country acre, where she has a home studio. Her paintings are inspired by the unexpected beauty found in everyday scenes around her.

About the Work

I find unexpected beauty in mundane, fleeting moments or scenes. In pursuit of these subjects, I have consciously chosen to paint what I find before me and around me, rather than seeking the grand, the distant, or the sublime. It’s like an artistic treasure hunt, and I hope that my delight shines through the painting.

In the tradition of Andrew Wyeth and other artists who put down roots in a geographic location and paint with an intimate knowledge of their surroundings, my landscapes reflect the scenes close to my home in rural Michigan. Painting the same trees and fields again and again as they transform through the seasons, I discover rewards for my close observation. The longer I look, the more I see subtle colors and textures that I translate into paint. In my landscapes I work at a fairly small scale because these are personal, intimate paintings rather than vast sweeping views.

My “Handiworks” series portraying artisans at work came as a natural step in my interest in depicting the unnoticed and commonplace. The skills used in traditional vocations are passed from person to person, and honed with years of repetition. This repetitive practice of working by hand has an intrinsic beauty which can’t be found in mechanical reproduction. I draw my subjects from my acquaintances, friends, and family; and from my memories of those who gave me a lifelong interest in craft.

My work honors the creativity and worth found in all people and in all lives.