Kathryn Macnaughton is a Toronto based abstract painter and graphic designer. Her work has a balance of expressive marks and graphic moments that make her paintings only her own!
Macnaughton's entire body of work is impressively unified. Her use of the colour black is consistent and gives each painting a heavily graphic quality. Macnaughton uses contrast to her advantage in her practice, pitting fluid and transparent brushstrokes against crisp and opaque geometric forms. She stacks each painting up layer by layer, and allows the shapes to build up and interact with each other. However, Macnaughton is still able to keep her compositions feeling planned and well balanced. Elements in her work are obviously representative such as the plant life she includes, and even her abstract forms have a interestingly figurative quality.
When we asked Macnaughton about her painting practice she expressed to us how influential Matisse has been on her because of his use of colour and bold shapes. She is particularly influenced by his painting Memory of Oceania.
Kathryn Macnaughton's body of work radiates a tropical essence that has us dreaming of a warmer climate. Thanks for speaking with us Kathryn and we can't wait to see what you make next!
