Northeast/Southwest

Opening: December 6th, 2024 from 5 – 9 pm

She has been drawn to wilderness for as long as she can remember. Hiking in the mountains or the desert, miles from civilization, she found a state of consciousness that neurologists call “flow:” a state that is hyper-observant, yet contentedly calm. She often reach the same feeling while she paints. For her, the link between painting and landscapes is physical.

The landscapes she’s drawn to, and try to capture on canvas, are rarely traditionally pleasant. They are often uninhabited, remote, and cold. Human objects, when they do appear, are in sharp contrast to the natural background. She likes landscapes that are random, imperfect, and “organic,” yet have a basic organization arising from the simple rules of geology, hydrology, and biological symmetry. While traveling through a wilderness, she looks for scenes that strike this balance between order and chaos. She photographs them, often with whatever app is on hand, and paint from a combination of photo, memory, and imagination. Oil paint, with its seed-oil medium and mineral pigment, feels like an obvious analogue to images of a primeval world.

These images try to capture some of what she senses, both scientifically and spiritually, about the natural world: It is built on simple rules that result in an infinite profusion of forms, all of which are successful in their own way; it is indifferent to any individual, including you, including me; and it is our only home.

Artist Statement:

Kate Follett is a New England-based landscape painter. As a child, she spent hours wandering through the woods near her home in central Vermont. Her love of wilderness travel continued into adulthood, and she has found inspiration throughout New England, the American West, Australia, and South America. She studied painting and two-dimensional design at Skidmore College and Amherst College, and received an MFA in fiction writing from Emerson College.

After being away from art for many years, Kate began studying painting under Debra Highberger in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 2014. Influenced by Emily Carr, Ed Mell, Georgia O’Keefe, and other “expressionist landscape” artists such as the Canadian Group of Seven, she began to produce larger landscape works in oil, both on canvas and specially prepared paper. She is a member of the Salem Arts Association of Salem, Massachusetts. Her paintings have been exhibited in the Salem Hospital; Mercy Tavern in Salem, Massachusetts; The Acorn Gallery in Marblehead, Massachusetts; the Salem Arts Association Gallery; the Salmon Falls Gallery in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts; and the Anchor House of Artists in Northampton, MA.