The Singular Elegance of Trees | Paintings — Katie DeGroot

Jun 102017
 

DeGroot 8. ZombieZombie – watercolor on paper, 24″ x 18″, 2015

 

As an artist I have been focusing on painting trees and their cast-off limbs, i.e. sticks, for many years.

Trees are completely individual. They are adapters and survivors; each one is unique, and I believe that is something most people don’t think about. We are taught to look at trees based on a stereotype; the image of a perfectly pruned tree is the one most people have in their heads, balanced and symmetrical. But in nature those rarely exist. Trees grow to survive, they adapt to their given environment, growing into strange shapes, producing oddly shaped limbs, becoming contortionists to get to sunlight, and bowing to the will of other larger trees. They grow in context to each other and their neighbors, adapting as best they can to the situation they find themselves in.

 

DeGroot 1. DowserDowser – watercolor on paper,  24″ x 18″, 2015

 

DeGroot 2. For FortunyFor Fortuny – watercolor on paper, 24″ x 18″, 2015

 

While my artwork has always been based on a traditional observation process, the final appearance of the objects in my paintings is grounded in contemporary ideas and concerns and by my own quirky interpretation of the objects’ personalities. These objects allow me to explore my interests in surrealism (especially the Chicago artists collective The Hairy Who) and abstraction along with pursuing the pure physical pleasure of painting.

 

DeGroot 3. La De DaLa De Da – watercolor on paper, 50″x 40″, 2016

 

DeGroot 7. White BirchWhite Birch – watercolor on paper, 24″ x 18″, 2015

 

My current pieces have developed from my compulsive observation of the trees in my “neighborhood” in upstate New York. I am always looking for new trees. I find my subjects by the side of the road or on hiking trails in nature preserves. Often I will ask for permission to cut down a tree on someone’s property after lusting after it for some time.

 

DeGroot 5. Menage A TroisMenage A Trois – watercolor on paper, 7′ x 4′, 2016

 

The last few trees (7′ long) that I have brought back to my studio have reminded me of Las Vegas show girls, adorned with cascading mushrooms, moss, and vines. They stand out in all their finery, in juxtaposition to the other plainer trees. Of course the irony is that these beautiful trees are dead and dying trees, and their finery is the work of decomposers set on reducing them to a rich addition to the earth beneath them.

 

DeGroot 6. ShowtimeShowtime – watercolor on paper, 7′ x 3 1/2′, 2017

Degroot 4. Showtime IIShowtime II –  watercolor on paper, 5′ x 3 1/2′ , 2017 

 

My paintings honor my subjects’ singular elegance and imagined personality, and I hope they can remind viewers to celebrate beauty in unexpected places.

—Katie DeGroot

x
Katie DeGroot
Artist Katie DeGroot was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan and grew up in the arcadian suburbs of Boston, MA. As a teenager she moved to Chicago, IL during the famous Democratic National Convention riots of 1968. She attended New York University and Illinois State University before spending nearly 20 years in New York City. Katie now resides on her great-grandparents’ farm next to the Hudson River in Fort Edward, NY, where she raises beef cows and makes art. She is also currently the director of Skidmore College Summer Studio Art Program.

x
x

Lichen, Bark & Mr. Smiley: Paintings — Katie DeGroot

Jan 112014
 

Photo1

Katie DeGroot is an old friend who lives in a farmhouse on the picturesque banks of the Hudson River just outside of Fort Edward, NY. Her son Niles was in day care with my boys. Her husband Jon and I used to ski together while the three boys practiced mayhem on more dangerous slopes. Like most artists I know, she has a quiet, obsessive side that drives her to long solitary hours in the studio relentlessly putting shapes and colours on paper or canvas. In this case, the shapes come notionally from nature, those rotted, knobby logs you see off the trail, festooned with things growing upon their morbidity. Strange symmetries. But she takes the logs out of nature and puts them up on a white ground, often in tandem (parallel constructions), with the images running off the page, and the moss, lichens and fungi elaborated in fantastic profusion.

dg

It’s funny, but as an artist I hate to even say I use watercolors because it’s the medium so much bad art is made with. It’s what your mother uses to paint with in her art class. I only started using watercolors because I had them and I was waiting for the oil paint to dry on a group of paintings. I have never learned the “correct” way to use them. I think of it as fast drying paint that can give you the most amazing color and translucency. You really only have one chance to make the artwork, the watercolor demands that you work quickly and then walk away. If you push too hard, or second guess your first take on the painting, the result is often an overworked failure. I edit a lot.

I have worked from nature for many years. Recently found objects such as sticks and logs have become a starting point for my studio investigation. Where these objects lead me in my artwork has to do with my interests in surrealism and abstraction, as well as my own quirky interpretation of the objects’ personality.

—Katie DeGroot

PanoramaNatural Attraction,  watercolor on paper, 45″x 60″  (2012)
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
3D0A6845 (1)
Big Diva, watercolor on paper, 45″x72″ (2013)
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
De Groot;K;5;Untitled3.13
Untitled (Nonquitt), watercolor on paper, 24″ x 18″ (2013)
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
De Groot;K;3Untiltled3.13
Untitled (Grey), watercolor, 24″x 18″ (2013)
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
2012-03-12 at 21-51-44 - Version 2
Dumbo, watercolor on paper, 24″x 18″ (2011)
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
2012-03-12 at 22-10-19
Mr. Smiley, watercolor on paper, 24″x 18″ (2011)
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
3D0A1238
Family Relations, watercolor on paper, 24″x 18″ (2013)
SPACE

 

SPACE—Katie DeGroot
/
SPACE

 

Katie DeGroot attended New York University and Illinois State University before living and working as an artist in New York City for nearly twenty years. Katie now resides and works in a studio on her great grandparents farm next to the Hudson River in Fort Edward, NY. Katie has exhibited her artwork regionally and nationally. Currently she is exhibiting work in the 2013 Mohawk-Hudson exhibition at The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, NY, and the Albany Airport Gallery. This fall she had a solo show at Gallery Gris in Hudson, NY. She is currently the Director of the Skidmore College Summer Studio Art Program.