Kathryn McDonnell is a painter living in Washington, DC. Her paintings are predominately oil on linen.  She has traveled the world widely while showing her work.  She earned a double major in Art History and Russian Language from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, and a Master of Fine Arts in painting from Mount Royal Graduate School of Art, the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland.  Ms. McDonnell is the recipient of the Margaret Stonewall Hamblet Award, awarded for merit in the studio arts, 1984, Vanderbilt University. Ms. McDonnell was a Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in 2000, and 1996, Sweet Briar, Virginia.
 
"My goal in art is to manipulate the perception of space. In painting I ask the viewer to explore the interaction between personal and public space. In daily life, the individual passes continually between his or her private experience to the space and public domain that we as a society build and share. I am fascinated how these many faceted experiences of space - physical, mental, emotional, internal and external - shape and define our lives.

In still life painting, I set up a model using found objects that have personal meaning to me. I also select cultural icons of our time and place to address the larger concerns we face as a society. During the painting process, forms change and are reduced to a simple vocabulary; the oval, the hourglass, the tower, the spiral and the square. I use these forms to allude to the eternal power of nature and ever-moving time.

I want the painting to be open, with layers of paint intersecting and gliding within the frame to intensify the ambiguity of space, form and light. Through this interplay, I hope to underscore conflicts between society and the yearning of the individual.

"Art serves the unique creative impulse of being human.
Art tells us who we are, what we are and gives us hope to live life.
Art inspires us to keep going on and never give up."

Kathryn McDonnell
Visual Arts Studio