January 2, 2014

Who Is Kathy Durst Artist

By Marcia Marks


Okay, you won't really turn into Kathy Durst artist by viewing her work but it will certainly inspire you. Kathy was born in Redwing Minnesota and grew up in Illinois, attending an all-girl school. She earned a Bachelor's of Fine Arts degree at the Austin campus of the University of Texas as well as an all-level teaching certificate in the visual arts. She is retired from teaching, but remained very active in the arts. A selection of examples was selected for display of her first-ever solo display at the Ross Gallery in early 2014. The theme of these pieces appears to be Noah's Ark, because it is full of animals. This appears to be one of her favorite subjects.

A quarter of a century of teaching art has exposed the artist to almost every conceivable medium and technique. A lot of her work that is currently available for viewing online is paper painting collage stuff. Her "Lammie" is a great example of what can be achieved with creative use of scraps of paper and paint.

"Lammie", and her "Roseatte Spoonbill" illustrate the amazing amount of depth and detail that can be achieved with fun and simple techniques and materials. "Yulka, " a collage showing a young girl in a swimming pool using an empty soft drink bottle for floatation. This really shows off the three dimensional effects that can be achieved with paper paint collage.

The beauty of this technique is that the materials are cheaply and readily available and the method can be taught to the under-fives. Ms Durst, with a level of maturity and experience that comes with retirement age, is a virtuoso. View some tutorials of paint collage on the Internet and you will be more able to fully appreciate what the artist is about.

In terms of subject matter, Kathy seems partial to animals, although this could be because that is the theme of her show at the Ross Gallery. "Take Me Along, " featuring a pair of scuba divers, goes a long way to showing the breadth of creativity that can be achieved with paper paint collage as opposed to a plain old boring brush and paint. Here, the pair are swirling through a sea of musical notes and scraps from an atlas. It looks more ethereal than it sounds.

View this artist's work at your own peril and be prepared to spend time and money experimenting with your own painted paper collage artistry. It is positively inspiring. Seriously, just watching someone do it on YouTube is entrancing.

One of her most breathtaking works is "Rose." The flower itself is in shades of coral and flamingo, with splashes dotted around discreetly in the surrounding foliage. This may or not be in the same medium of painted paper collage but it very well could be. She certainly has the talent and vision to pull this off.

Kathy Durst artist uses textured papers and stencils in her work to give it character and depth. As beginners, the best we can hope for is a lovingly-produced Sunday School project. Find the date of her next showing and track down her work. You will be hooked.




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