Kate Dardine - A Lifelong Conversation with the Natural World
A Life of Looking with Kate Dardine
“I feel my job, as an intuitive expressive painter, is to ask more questions than provide answers. Although I began my career painting realistically, the events in 2005 changed my painting dramatically. I became painfully aware that things are not always as they seem, and the surface rarely tells the whole story. My work now reflects the desire to see beyond what is seen with the eyes, using the motifs of animals to express what exists beyond the constraints of what can be explained by empirical knowledge. From a chaotic birth of random color and mark making, through layers of trial and error, each painting strives to reveal insight into the deeper questions of what is true and real. In the past few years, I have been working more abstractly, challenging myself to say more with less reference to realism.”
Kate Dardine was born in 1957 in Connecticut and spent her childhood exploring the woods surrounding her home and illustrating the “dream stories” that she and her sisters invented – stories that almost always involved riding horses across the wide-open prairies of the West. After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Illustration from Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT, she and her husband packed up their 2 kids and followed their dream to Colorado where they built a log house on 11 acres of farmland.
At one time they shared their lives with five horses, five dogs, four cats and a couple of pygmy goats. In 2015, they sold their property and moved into town, giving Kate the opportunity to pursue art full time. They both miss the wide open spaces and hope to return to the land soon.
Currently Kate’s muses include her studio dog, Carly and her 30-year-old mare, Stormi.
She is represented by Equis Art Gallery, Red Hook, NY, Old Town Art and Framery, Fort Collins, CO and Wilde Meyer Galleris, Scottsdale and Tucson, AZ.