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About Kathleen Frank
Artist Kathleen Frank is in love with nature. A contemporary landscape painter, she seeks out magnificent vistas to depict in her paintings. She has hiked hundreds of miles to paint the land of the Southwest and West, capturing images of the brilliance and vivaciousness of the natural world that beg to be painted. She is willing to go to any length to reach the precise vantage point she is seeking. It may take some serious, long-distance hiking, up, down and over rocky outcroppings, a plunge down an arroyo or a sprawl in sage bushes to capture exactly what she wants, but she is never timid about climbing, trudging, and scrambling to reach the sought-after sweep or bird’s-eye view of the colorful and uniquely rugged landscapes.
Kathleen Frank lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Raised in Northern California by parents who were adventurous teachers, who hosted and nurtured hundreds of foreign students in their home and traveled around the globe with Kathleen and her sister during their free summers, Frank’s background proved invaluable in the formation of her world view of the diversity of cultures and artistic styles. She earned a BA in Fine Art and Design from San Jose State University in 1967 and a California Teacher’s Certification in Art Education in 1968. Her first job was on Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert during the Viet Nam era. There she met her husband, an Air Force flight test engineer, who later received his PhD in Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. Frank taught art and was introduced to woodcarving in Colorado. In Pennsylvania, where the family had moved for her husband’s university position, that woodcarving led to a printmaking program at Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Arts degree in 1993. She continued to travel the globe with her family, meeting and learning from artists around the world. She co-founded the Printmakers Studio Workshop of Central Pennsylvania, where printmakers conducted classes and held community art exhibitions. During that time, Frank taught printmaking and costume design at The Greer School, as well as guest lecturing throughout the state and exhibiting the masks and costumes she designed.
She began a gradual shift to painting in a style reminiscent of the marks of a woodcarver-printmaker. Her paintings express how pattern and repetition entice her. Discovering this in nature is primal to Frank – finding a glint of logic in complex jumbled terrains and instinctively favoring a semblance of orderliness among the randomness of our landscapes.
In her studio, she examines every photo to select images she wants to paint. To Frank, any photo may be a gem in disguise. What resonates for her, whether a tranquil panorama or a robust display, is if a resplendent unguarded emotion is asserting itself.
Her oil paintings begin with a saturated red-orange backdrop. Frank knows the ground will poke through and feels what would be more joyful than red? She thinks of Swedish Dala horses, Chinese luck symbols and the tropical setting sun. Using broad single brushstrokes of brilliant color for her overlaid imagery, hints of the background peek through like a woodcut, creating an understated influence on the overall painting, enhancing yet not diverting from the imagery.
Frank is irresistibly drawn to vibrant color. She looks for the splendor and gaiety of life around her. She catches light and design in all its strangeness and beauty. While the colors in an image will dictate choices to a degree, the process of selecting hues and highlighting or muting is an active one, determined by what she is choosing to accentuate. When, for instance, her yellows are surrounded by blue-violets, purples and red-violets, she thinks “now you’ve got something to look at that is striking and vibrant and joyous.” This is where the playfulness of art making is found for her.
Frank is not averse to making repeat patterns rather than showing every distinctive bit of landscape. The details she chooses to emphasize can be purely aesthetic. The overall essence and atmosphere of the image dictates what matters, and which peripheral details are not relevant. She acknowledges that she is not above adding a dramatic sky to a painting.
Another part of her painting process that Frank exults in is using oils - she loves the feel of the paint. She has proclaimed, “Let’s face it, the smell feels like creativity itself.”
Frank’s work was selected for Art in Embassies, U.S. Department of State, Ambassador’s residence, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and she won the Curator’s Choice Award at the Art in the West exhibit, High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon. Exhibitions (recent and upcoming) include the St. George Art Museum, St. George, Utah; International Art Museum of America, San Francisco, California; University of New Mexico Valencia, Los Lunas, New Mexico; Northwest Montana History Museum, Kalispell, Montana; The MonDak Heritage Center Art & History Museum, Sidney, MT; and WaterWorks Museum, Miles City, Montana.
Publications highlighting her work include Western Art & Architecture; LandEscape Art Review, London; Southwest Art; Artwork Gallery Magazine, Kyiv, Ukraine; Art Folio; The Uncoiled; Modern Renaissance, Washington, DC; Artful News and Notes, New Mexico State Committee/National Museum of Women in the Arts; Colorado Expression; ART UP MI, Milan; Cordella Magazine; Lily Poetry Review; Forget-Me-Not Press; Defunkt Magazine; About Place Literary and Arts Journal; CALYX, Journal of Art and Literature by Women; Dream Noir; RipRap #45; Abandon Journal; The Healing Muse; Silk Road Review; Gone Lawn; Blue Mesa Review; The Working Artist; MVIBE Magazine, New York; Art Hole Magazine, London; Fine Art Connoisseur; Western Art Collector; Magazine 43, Berlin, Hong Kong and Manila; ArLijo;
Monk Magazine, UK; Aji Magazine; Monograph, Calcutta; Iō Literary Journal; Chestnut Review; 3 Elements Review; Borrowed Solace; 805 Lit + Art; Thought Magazine; The MacGuffin;
and Cowgirl magazine. The New Mexico Bar Bulletin, Source Weekly, Discover Map Santa Fe & Vicinity (7th
edition) and The Santa Fe Travel Insider have featured her work as cover art. Frank was interviewed on Coffee + Culture, KTRC Radio 103.7, Santa Fe, New Mexico and Art World Innovators, UMFM Radio 101.5, University of Manitoba, Canada.
Collections: Desert Caballeros Western Museum, Wickenburg, Arizona; Climate Art Collection, Berlin, Germany; Silversea Luxury Cruises, Royal Caribbean Group, Fontvieille, Monaco; and the Pattee and Paterno Library, Pennsylvania State University, College Park, Pennsylvania.
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