Today we’d like to introduce you to Kathleen Strukoff.
Hi Kathleen, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Painting “alla prima” or “at the first” is what thrills Kathleen most about painting. Capturing the essence of a scene on location in one quick and energetic session when possible is the idea but she often takes those on location smaller paintings and develops them into larger ones in her atelier. Kathleen uses a combination of palette knife and vigorous brushwork with bold colors to express her translation of the scene. She is known for her brilliant colors and capturing the light whether it is a Palm Springs urbanscape or a desert landscape!
Kathleen’s love for painting landscapes began as a young girl growing up in New Mexico where she first started painting in the beautiful environment of northern New Mexico. Like many artists, she was moved by the spectacular vistas and colors that you see in nature on a daily basis when you live in the high desert areas of this state. After starting out as an art student in college, Kathleen took academic and professional paths that led her toward the business world but never lost her passion for oil painting and trying to capture the beauty of a landscape. In recent years, she has become obsessed with the spirit and challenge of plein air painting. She loves the spontaneous nature of this form of painting and the effort of trying to capture the momentary impression of a place, time of day and the weather that is occurring at a moment’s notice.
Kathleen takes particular joy in her alter ego as the “Palm Springs Pop Up Painter”. She loves the spontaneous nature of plein air painting and the effort of trying to capture the momentary impression of a place, time of day and the weather that is occurring at a moment’s notice. Her paintings capture the radiance of a scene in thick, textural strokes of vibrating color. During COVID, she popped up around Palm Springs to paint the small businesses that were trying to survive. The businesses loved the donated artwork as a bright spot in a bleak situation.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It always has been and still is a roller coaster. Always the case for a person in the arts! After college, I moved into business roles and became focused on my business career and did not figure out a person could both be a business person AND paint by night and weekends! I finally got back to that idea and tried to juggle my business career with my painting career. I tried to keep those two worlds fairly distinct from each other.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am an oil painter who specializes in modern impressionism paintings of urbanscapes and landscapes. I love painting in my studio that is part of the South Palm Springs Art Collective AND my solo efforts AND being able to go out and paint en plein air (on location) both with my fellow artists and on my own. I am most proud of the work I do to support other artists including starting the 11 Art Salon for just artists to share ideas with each other.
I specialize in vigorous and vivid oil paintings that are fairly unique and different from the work of others. Being able to paint live at events is also fairly unique and my alter ego of the Palm Springs Pop Up Painter is definitely unique in the area.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
I would say the most important thing is to help me get the word out about the fabulous artists in the area that can be a source of wonderful artwork vs thinking that they have to far afield to find wonderful art. I also love educating kids about the world of art and modern architecture. I also am very motivated about how to continue to use my art to help people heal in different ways.
Pricing:
- Small oil paintings: $300 – $5,000
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kathleenstrukoff.com
- Instagram: lachicaart
- Facebook: kathleenstrukoff
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kathleenstrukoff7407
