Kathleen Gallagher
From the moment Kathleen first took hold of a pencil as a child, she has felt the passionate longing to create. With an explorer’s spirit, she left her home province of British Columbia and traveled extensively in her early twenties throughout the Pacific Northwest, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Northern Alberta. With a sketchbook in hand, she felt inspired by the textures and colours in the landscapes and the complexity of nature.
Passing through Grand Prairie, Alberta, she decided to enroll in the Visual Fine Arts Program at the Grande Prairie Regional College in 1982-83. She spent a year there and developed a new passion for painting. After studying in Alberta she eventually returned to British Columbia and raised a wonderful son. Although she left her artistic pursuits behind for a period of time, they were never forgotten; she started painting again in 2008, and it felt as if she had never left. Feeling her creativity burst forth, her artistic journey has began anew.
Over the years, her work has taken on an abstract style and has evolved into an exploration of texture, helped along by the use of her favorite tool, the palette knife. Kathleen often uses her camera to capture images in nature that inspire her to paint. Sometimes it is a simple shape, a field full of flowers, or a single branch full of texture. Enraptured by these complex subtle workings of nature, and wanting to represent this feeling on canvas, is the force behind her passionate need to paint and has directly influenced her evolving style.
Passing through Grand Prairie, Alberta, she decided to enroll in the Visual Fine Arts Program at the Grande Prairie Regional College in 1982-83. She spent a year there and developed a new passion for painting. After studying in Alberta she eventually returned to British Columbia and raised a wonderful son. Although she left her artistic pursuits behind for a period of time, they were never forgotten; she started painting again in 2008, and it felt as if she had never left. Feeling her creativity burst forth, her artistic journey has began anew.
Over the years, her work has taken on an abstract style and has evolved into an exploration of texture, helped along by the use of her favorite tool, the palette knife. Kathleen often uses her camera to capture images in nature that inspire her to paint. Sometimes it is a simple shape, a field full of flowers, or a single branch full of texture. Enraptured by these complex subtle workings of nature, and wanting to represent this feeling on canvas, is the force behind her passionate need to paint and has directly influenced her evolving style.
