Kate Nordstrom

I’m Kate Nordstrom from midcoast Maine, a place of varied landscapes and arresting beauty. Unintentionally and over time, I have created a vocabulary of familiar symbols which inhabit my work.  When words fail to express my thoughts, they might manifest in my art.

 

Since I don’t draw from photos, the process is rendered through somewhat improvised imagination. Willowy poppies share the canvas with joyful songbirds and yellow houses.  Midnight crows and shark fish might appear together or be a single subject in a composition. A rabbit leaps along the arc of a starry night.  A dose of whimsy, pronounced color and unexpected objects skip in and out of compositions with the only aim to delight and ignite curiosity. While I am its author, nothing pleases me more than when a viewer relates the visual to a story of their own.  A building’s rounded roof might be seen as a Turkish mosque to you.

 

The premise of my painting might change dramatically from the original idea.  I move images around a canvas until I land on a relationship among various shapes and meanings. I love oil for its malleability, superb glaze and leeway to adjust this sometimes messy medium so my crows can cackle off the canvas!  And if a painting sticks around too long, I may just repaint it.  I don’t paint for an audience, but my hope is that an audience finds a story in my work. Maybe you will, too. And on my mind always - where will my brush lead me in the future?